


The Importance of Eclairs and Apologies

by KateThorne



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Human, Anal Sex, Angst, Barebacking, Booty Calls, Brotherly Bonding, First Kiss, First Time, Fluff, Gabriel being Grumpy, Half-Siblings, M/M, Mental Illness (mentioned), Oral Sex, Suicide (mentioned), misunderstandings everywhere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-26
Updated: 2014-06-01
Packaged: 2018-01-26 15:02:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 22,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1692596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KateThorne/pseuds/KateThorne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gabriel likes the life he built for himself; with everything he needs and no favors from anyone. Then a walking wet dream moves in next door and Gabriel needs to reevaluate feelings that he thought died 20 years ago. On top of all that, his brother's boyfriend keeps trying to set him up on a blind date.</p><p>Or the one where Dean accidentally sets his brother up with Gabriel and manages to say all the wrong things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! Just letting you know that if you enjoy this work (or want to read a longer version) you can buy this fic in BOOK form on amazon [HERE](https://www.amazon.com/Something-Sweet-Melanie-Hart-ebook/dp/B01134ROH8/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1493770932&sr=8-6&keywords=melanie+hart) Names are changed to protect the copyrighted, but it's still a good time. 
> 
> Fan Fiction is the reason I'm a writer and that's just a fact. It's just creative writing practice! Practice that you just can't wait to do! (which is the best kind, after all) So check it out! And if I can do it, anyone can, so make sure you get out there and write! And then tell me about any new gay romance books you publish because I honestly think I read them all.

Gabriel was up to his elbows in frothed milk. The card reader to the register was on the fritz again and the dope on the other side of the counter with a bluetooth wanted to taste EVERY milk option he offered. It was really not his day. He was going to fire everyone. Or, he would, if training a new batch of eighteen year-olds was easier than teaching his dog to work the register. 

Bluetooth deush finally settled on almond milk and went along his merry way, no tip. And just because someone, out there, had Gabriel's name on a list of assmonekys to fuck with, Pamela walked out to the front counter holding the store phone with her lips in a prim line. Gabriel would jump off the roof if the building were more than two stories hight. 

Gabriel had to actually count to ten before he folded the phone between his ear and his shoulder. 

“What's up, Cas?” 

“You didn't even call.” His brother bit over the line without preamble.

“Yeah, sorry about that Cas, but it was just dinner, right? I can make it up to you guys.”

“No, Gabriel, it wasn't _just dinner_. It was our first dinner as... as...”

“Cas, it's you and Dean, I was there when you met. I'm happy for you and all, but you've been practically living together for three months now. I've met the guy. I like the guy. I'm happy for you or whatever but I actually work, bro.” 

Castiel's wounded silence reverberated throughout the line.

“Not that what you do isn't work--”

“Dean cooked for you.” Cas interrupted. They both knew how Gabriel felt about Castiel's 'career.' Gabriel wasn't exactly known for filtering. Gabriel's shoulders fell and he pinched the bridge of his nose. 

“Damn...” he said, remorsefully, “I asked him not to do that. I said I'd bring something.” 

“Then it's a good thing he did!” Castiel snapped. Castiel only ever snapped at Gabriel. It wasn't a testament to how comfortable he was with his older brother, but a testament to how much more Gabriel deserved it than the average person in Cas' introverted little life. 

“Is Dean mad?”

“ _I'm mad._ ” 

“C'mon, Cas. You know how work has been. And then that kid quit and it's coming up on finals for the students so I've been staying open later... I was going to but then I got busy and I forgot.”

“Just call Gabriel.” Cas said, finally relenting. He was a sweet kid. Always relenting. He deserved a better brother than Gabriel. “And come over tonight? Maybe?” 

“We'll see, bucko.” 

“Ok... Well. Good... Then.” Castiel said hesitantly. That's the way Castiel always sounded when Gabriel agreed to something. Hesitant to trust him. Gabriel hadn't really given the kid any reason to not sound like that. “Bye, Gabriel.” 

“Yeah, later, little bro.” 

***

Gabriel sat at the desk he had crammed into the tiny broom closet he called an office. Gabriel wasn't a particularly large man, but even he had to be careful when he stood up lest he hit his head on the shelves above his desk. There were about a half dozen indents in the shelf to catalog all the times he had forgotten. 

He put his head in his hands, tearing his eyes away from the mountain of invoices in front of him. He checked his phone. Only one missed call from his brother. Castiel was learning, just not as quickly as all the friends and lovers that had been taught to just stop trying. 

He heard Pamela walk toward the office, all the lights in the place turned off, the chairs stacked. Ready for the next day. All over again. 

“Gabriel.” she said gently, her apron off and held in a bunch by her hip. “You ready to head out?” 

“Not quite. I'll lock the door behind you.” 

“You want me to stay? I can help.” She reached out and put her hand on his shoulder. Gabriel relaxed under her friendly touch. As much as he bitched and moaned about his employees, he really did love all those little assholes that worked with him. Pamela was the store manager and the only one of the bunch over thirty. She was probably better than what Gabriel payed her, but she stuck around anyway. She was always so intuitive without an ounce of meekness or shyness. She just saw that someone needed a hug or an ear and there she was, without explanation or apology. 

But while Pamela was intuitive and smart and one of the only people Gabriel knew who didn't let his bullshit bully her around, she was worth more that what he was paying her and she was better than a hole in the wall coffee shop that was really only keeping its head above the red. 

“Nah. You've already worked forty this week and we both know I can't afford to pay you overtime. Get out of here. Go home to that man of yours. Jessie?”

“Old news, boss man.” Pamela shrugged, “It wasn't forever.” 

“That makes the tattoo problematic, then.” 

Pamela grinned. “If someone doesn't want to fuck me because of what ink on my ass says, they certainly won't like the things that come out of my mouth.” She looked down at the invoices stacked on the desk, “You sure you gonna be ok, boss?” 

“Yeah, we'll get by. We always do. Even if it's usually just by the skin of our teeth.” 

“I didn't ask about the business.” Pamela said, her hand giving his shoulder a squeeze, “I asked if _you_ were gonna be ok.” 

“I always am, Pamela.” Gabriel said wryly, turning from her and her all-seeing eyes, “Even if, sometimes, it's only by the skin of my teeth.” 

Pamela let it drop. Unlike Castiel, Pamela always knew when to let it drop. 

“I started a pot of coffee for you. I can wash the pot in the morning, so don't worry about it.” She ruffled his hair; something Gabriel would only let Pamela do and only when they were alone. He had a scary/ grumpy image to uphold to his other workers.

“You're too good for me.” Gabriel said wistfully as she kissed his forehead. 

“Keep telling yourself that.” Pamela said with a wink. “Take a night off every once in a while. Get a drink. Get laid. See a movie, you know, they make those in color now.”

“Get out of here.” Gabriel said, but behind his laugh. 

“Take care of yourself, boss man.” Pamela called as she headed out the door. 

After about ten more minutes, Gabriel stood and cracked his back. He evaded the shelf like a pro and headed out to the counter to pour himself a cup of Pamela's coffee. 

He was debating having an eclair for dinner when a shadow fell across the pastry case. 

A huge, mutant of a man stood at the window of the shop, looking in. He looked at the shop hours posted on the door, then looked longingly back at the pastry case in the window before turning away. 

Gabriel sighed, but had never managed to be able to turn away anyone who wanted one of his pastries. 

He walked around the counter and jogged to the door in order to get there as the mountain man turned to walk sadly away like some overgrown dejected puppy. 

“Hey,” Gabriel called to the man's back as he headed away, down the mostly empty street. “Hey, man. You want a something?”

The guy stopped in his tracks and turned to Gabriel. Well, turned then looked down at Gabriel. Jesus, this man was a tree. Boy, Gabriel corrected himself. He couldn't have been older than 25. 

“What? Oh. No, sorry. I'm sorry, I didn't know you were in there. I know you're closed. I just... wanted to look. I just moved in upstairs and I walk past it every night. It looks good. It always looks really good.”   
“We're closed but I'll sell you something. It's not a big deal.” Gabriel said. He held the door open for the kid, standing back to let him in. After a moment, the tree sized man followed. “Whatcha in the mood for?”

“Um,” the tree said, patting his pockets, “Just a cookie.”

Gabriel raised an eyebrow, “I could have sworn I saw you looking at those eclairs like you wanted to do unholy things to them.” 

The boy turned pink, such a violent shade that Gabriel could detect it, even in the mostly dark cafe, lit only with the street lights outside and the lights of the pastry case. “Well, I don't have much...” he pulled out a crumpled $1 bill and some change. Mostly pennies from Gabriel's perspective.

Gabriel sighed again, even more unable to resist letting someone walk away from his pastry case empty handed when the “someone” was a massive man child that blushed violently pink and had an ass that wouldn't quit. Gabriel had noticed. 

“Ok, well, I have to make a new batch tomorrow anyway, so why don't you just take this.” 

“Oh, I couldn't.” 

“Yes, you will.” Gabriel said, putting it in a box and handing it over, the kid still didn't take it. Gabriel rolled his eyes, “And you'll pay me back later. You've just told me where you live. I happen to live in the other unit. We're neighbors and all.”

“Look, we just met, I can't let you.” 

“Hey, kid, I'll level with you, I don't 'insist' very often, so take the eclair. I wish you both a long and happy marriage. I'll see you around all the time.”

“Um... yes. Yeah. Ok. Thank you.” the kid said, shoulders dropping almost monumentally as he relaxed and accepted the proffered box. “I'm gonna pay you back.” He nodded earnestly. So earnestly, and so openly that Gabriel's rusty, dis functioning heart melted a bit. 

“It really doesn't matter.” Gabriel admitted, “I just want people to eat the things I bake and I only sell them so I don't end up going broke. Tell you what, kid. At around this time of night, I usually put the day-old pasties on sale to make room for the fresh ones in the morning. If you stopped by around this time and I'm still here... I can hook you up. But only if you don't tell your friends. I can't feed all the starving students in this town.” 

“I can't let you do that.”

“I'm insisting.” Gabriel said.

“For someone who says they don't, you sure do that a lot.” the boy offered a small smile. Gabriel returned it. “I'm Sam.”

“Hey, Sam, I'm Gabriel.” 

Sam held up the eclair, a mimicking a toast. “It's really been great meeting you.” 

“You too, kiddo.”

Sam started backing towards the door. Gabriel followed to lock up behind him. He might have watched Sam walk away a little longer than strictly necessary. 

***

Gabriel made it another three hours before he decided to call it quits. He could really only stare at his bank statements long enough before he realized that another zero wasn't going to magically appear any time soon. 

And so he locked the door, three locks and a dead bolt, before heading around the corner to the walk up. As he passed the graffiti along the alleyway and admired the assortment of gang signs and pornographic doodles, he pulled his coat a little tighter around him, the chill threatening to sink into his bones. 

It wasn't that his cafe was in a bad part of the neighborhood, it was just that it wasn't a particularly nice part either. It was mostly a business district, with storefronts and a handful of apartments on top. He was sandwiched between a coin laundry and a used bookstore. On the trendy edges of the tough neighborhood, where hipsters sat on door steps and resented the brownstones only two blocks west. Gabriel liked the neighborhood, simply because they asked nothing of him and he nothing of it. Gabriel didn't go for strolls in the park. He didn't eat at local restaurants and he didn't peruse storefronts. Gabriel had minimal needs of his surroundings. He had knocked out the wall between two apartments in his building and made himself a nice little bat cave. He had a kitchen and a TV and his laptop. He even bought himself a dog, too, so all his needs could be met in between his four walls, without him having to ask anything of anyone. Well, most of his needs anyway. There were certain, blushing things with amazing asses that a silicone dildo or a fleshlight just couldn’t really compare to. 

But, if that was the worst thing in Gabriel's life, then things weren't so bad. 

So he fed his dog. He watched TV. He trolled porn late at night.

Then he went back downstairs, less than fifty steps, to his cafe and stayed there for a twelve hour shift. Gabriel could live his whole life without having to walk past the edge of the block. Gabriel could go days only texting Castiel and talking to Pamela. 

It was as good a life as he could expect. No body really asked anything of him. 

But he saw the sad door to the sad studio apartment he knew resided at the corner of the building. The only apartment besides his on the floor and felt a little pang of something. Pity, perhaps. At the idea that someone was trying to forge a new life only a door down from the place where he gave up and settled into lonely mediocrity. But Sam was young. And beautiful. And he'd leave someday. 

Then Gabriel felt a little pang of something at that idea as well. Perhaps a little pity for himself. 

***

 

Gabriel's alarm went off the next morning far too soon for his taste. Even the terrier tucked under his arm gave a disgruntled snort at the rude awakening. Gabriel sat up and the dog rolled into the huge indent left behind by his weight. He scratched her belly. She gave him a look that said it wasn't great but it would do. 

Gabriel snapped her leash on and headed down the stairs, only half awake as was their morning routine. Usually she was pulling at the leash. Today she was staring down the empty hallway, towards the door to the studio apartment, her ears erect and alert. Gabriel followed her eyes to watch the door to the studio apartment open and, sure enough, big tall tree man Sam was stepping out of it, wearing running pants and a zip hoodie with head phones in his ears. 

Sam hadn't noticed them, he turned his back to them as he locked his door. The dog started to wag her tail so hard her entire body shook. Sam dropped his key and bent down to retrieve it. His dark mesh running shorts pulling tight over the nothing less than artful swell of his ass. 

“Good girl.” Gabriel said under his breath. The terrier glanced up at him then back over at Sam who still hadn't cottoned on to their presence. 

Finally Sam turned and stopped short as he saw them on the stairs. He hurriedly jerked the headphone out from his ear. 

“Hey.” He said, kinda breathless and pink faced. His hair was annoyingly, artfully disheveled. His lips were rudely sensual. Beside him, Gabriel's dog was about to lift off the ground with how fast her tail was helicoptering. “Oh, hey, who is this?” Sam asked, looking down at her. His eyes grew wide. Gabriel had actually gotten her secretly in the hopes that she might help him get laid. Eight years and about a zillion poop bags later, the investment seemed to finally be paying off.   
Sam squatted down. She went straight for licking the ears. 

“I didn't know you had a dog!” Sam said, “Oh, I love dogs.” 

His voice almost trembled pathetically. Gabriel's out-of-service heart gave a phantom swell. 

“What's his name?” Sam asked, just as she reared up onto her hind legs to get better access to his face, “Oh, her name. Sorry, girl.” He started scratching her ears and she all but collapsed on him, throwing her belly up in the air. “Aw, you don't mind, do ya, girl?” 

She lazily half closed her eyes as Sam got that spot under her arm pit. Sam finally looked up from her to Gabriel, smiling brightly like some kid on Christmas. 

“Angie. She came with the name. And she likes it, absolutely refuses to go by anything else.”

Sam silently mouthed 'Angie' at the dog, as she wiggled on her back in her lack of dignity. She wagged her tail, sending her whole body rocking from side to side. She shamelessly flung her tongue out to the side of her mouth as she bathed in Sam's attention. Sam was grinning stupidly, and also, pointedly, not getting up and moving along. 

Good dog. 

“So, you missing a family dog you left at home when you went to college?” 

Sam looked up at him, fox shaped eyes and big boyish dimples as Sam found his eyes beneath the fringe of his long bangs. 

“Nah. My brother says he's allergic but he really just doesn't like 'em. And my Dad didn't trust me to keep anything alive. Always wanted one though. My ex, she had a golden retriever. Bones. Man, I loved that dog.”

And, there it was. Gabriel chastised his hormones for getting ahead of himself. 

“She's a good, old girl.” Sam decided, finally standing up. Angie whined and stood with him. “So, that's your place?” Sam asked, nodding with his chin toward Gabriel's apartment door. 

“Yup. Right above my shop. We open in a couple hours. Want some breakfast? We do eggs six to ten” 

“Ah, maybe some other time.” Sam said, wistfully. A man that size had to be always hungry. It didn't add up. 

Sam couldn't resist bending down and giving Angie another ear scratch. 

“What time do you get out of class today?”

Sam wrinkled his brow, “Today? About ten.”

“You know, I've been looking for someone to keep her entertained while I'm working. I don't get a lot of breaks. How about a big egg breakfast in exchange for walking her when you get home from class? She looks old but she can go for miles. I'm really getting the better end of the deal, here.” 

Sam still looked hesitant. 

“Fine, twist my arm why don't you? I'll throw in another eclair for after the walk. Brain food. To help you study. It's science, trust me.”  
Sam broke into another, radiant smile. Did he have any idea what he looked like? 

“You can't keep giving me stuff.” Sam said, but he was smiling shyly and looking back down at Angie, who was getting mighty jealous of Sam's attention. 

“It's eggs, dude. And an eclair that I make dozens of everyday. I really do need to get her out more often. She trashes the place if I don't. And I think that maybe she's a little lonely. All cooped up in there by herself. Dogs weren't meant to live like that.”

“Damn. Break my heart, why don't you?” Sam said softly. “Fine I'll do it. For Angie. And also the eclair.” 

“Mmmhmm, and how do you like your eggs?” 

“Sunny up.” Sam said, flashing Gabriel those dimples once more. It was almost enough in itself. 

“Well, we better get going if I've got a breakfast to make. C'mon, Angie.” 

Sam stood to let them go. “I do really appreciate it, Gabriel. Thanks.” 

“Don't mention it, kiddo.” Gabriel said as he let himself and the dog out. 

And it was like eating too much cake, too fast. He was too old to fill up on the sweet and earnest smiles of 20 year old boys. It tasted good at first but left a sort of burning in his heart when it was over.

***

Castiel learned that before five in the morning, when Gabriel was walking the dog, was the most opportune time to call. 

Gabriel sighed before he even put the phone to his ear. 

“I know, I didn't call.” he said. 

“Honestly, I didn't actually think you would.” ok, that hurt. “So, here's the 411: Dean wants to ask you a favor. He was going to do it over dinner but the longer this goes on the more obvious it is that you won't show up. So.”

“411?” Gabriel smirked at Dean's lingo through his little brother's serious mouth. Man, did he like Dean. Most wonderful and unexpected thing to happen to his baby brother. “Dean is a wonderful influence on you.” he said fondly. 

“Whatever. Anyway, could you please come over so he can just ask you a favor? Since you like him so much.”

“C'mon, Cassie, don't say it like that.” 

“How do you want me to say it? I set my alarm because I knew this is the only time you'd answer the phone. So. Please. Just come over for his sake since mine isn't enough.”

“Cassie. Cas. Castiel.” 

“What.” 

“Don't be sour, man. I'm just... like this... You can't take it personally.” 

“How do you want me to take it, Gabriel?” 

“Just. Yeah. Dinner. Tonight. I'll have Pamela close for me. I'll be there. And I'll bring something and tell Dean I know I fucked up, ok?”

“Whatever. I'll see you tonight. Maybe.” 

“Cas... Please don't be like that.”

“How do you want me to be, Gabriel?” Castiel asked softly. Something vulnerable and genuine that Gabriel hadn't known for a while was in his voice. Castiel was trying to figure out how to be his brother. Gabriel hadn't bothered. Cas had found a perfect boyfriend. But as brothers went; Cas could do better. 

“I'll see you tonight, Cas. Honest.” 

“Whatever, Gabriel.” 

***

Gabriel wasn't at the counter when Sam walked into the shop that afternoon. He just happened to be standing next to Pamela who was watching out the plexiglass window of the swinging door between the cafe and the kitchen. Gabriel was decorating cupcakes. 

“Holy mother of ass.” she breathed once he walked into her view. 

Gabriel peered around her and saw Sam, no smaller in the full light and seeming even more out of place surrounded by average sized people. 

“Well,” Gabriel said pointedly looking at his own gloved hands, in the middle of a task, “Go help him. His name is Sam. He's going to get an eclair on the house and he's gonna want to talk to me so send him back in a minute, would you?”

“Is he starting here?” she asked with nothing but lustful hope in her eyes. 

And the worst part was, though Pamela was probably about ten years his senior, she was also more likely to have him naked and between her legs. That was unfair on a universe sized level. 

“Keep in in your pants, Barnes.” he said, “No, he moved in upstairs and he's taking Angie for a walk for me. He's a good kid.”

“Is he a single kid?”

Gabriel glared at her and she broke into a knowing smile. She nudged him gently with her elbow, “Is he a gay, single and ready to mingle kid?” 

“Just get out there and give the boy what he wants.”

“Oh, gladly,”

“From the pastry case!” he called to her eagerly hustling back. 

Gabriel didn't watch her smile at him. He didn't watch her puff her chest out and lean over the counter. He didn't watch her mentally undress him. He focused on his cupcakes. That's how he ended up stabbing one with the frosting tip; too much attention to detail. 

The swinging door opened and Pamela walked in with Sam in tow. Sam smiled again. Wow, that was dangerous. Gabriel started taking off his gloves. 

“Thanks, Pamela.” Gabriel said. She read the dismissal in his voice and gave an obscene wink before heading out to the cafe. Sam saw the wink and turned red. 

“Hey, so I actually need a favor.” Gabriel said as he reached his bare hands into his pockets, fishing for his keys. “And, just to be clear. This favor is for Angie. Not me.” 

“Yeah, absolutely,” Sam said without hesitation. “Yeah, I'd love to. Anything. At all. I really owe you for all the free food and stuff. And letting me take care of Angie is kind of like doing _me_ another favor so shoot.” 

“You haven't cleaned up after her yet.” Gabriel warned, but smiled all the same. “ Anyway, my brother and his boyfriend or partner or whatever want me over for dinner and I've bailed on them so often that they're starting to think I'm not real. Could you maybe feed her too? Her food is all right on the counter and she'll need another walk around eight.” 

“Oh, sure that's no problem,” he sounded enthusiastic, even.

“I'm not ruining any plans?” Gabriel asked, “It's Friday night.” 

“Is it? No. Not at all. I never have plans.” Sam clearly hadn't meant to say that last part, he dropped his eyes and grinned bashfully, turning his head away. “I mean, I would be happy to take care of her. She's a good dog.” 

“Thanks. I can actually pay you cash tonight. If you want. Or I can give it to you tomorrow morning.”

“No. Really, I can't take your money. Just, don't worry about it. It's only being neighborly.” 

“I need to give you something.”

“Um... that was an amazing eclair... maybe... store credit?” 

“Deal. Whatever you want, kiddo. On the house. In fact,” Gabriel lifted up the cupcake he had botched moments ago, “Have this one. It's not the prettiest to look at but it'll do the trick.” 

Sam took the cupcake without hesitation, his eyes growing wide. 

“Ok, so it's a cherry vanilla cake with an almond buttercream frosting that I--” 

Sam ate the cupcake in a single bite. 

He made a loud, obscene, smacking sound with his lips as he chewed. Sam turned that exquisite shade of pink again and Gabriel realized he was staring. 

“Sorry,” Sam said after he swallowed, “Sorry, that was probably gross. It just looked really good. I had sorta been looking at them since Pamela brought me back here.”

“You've got frosting...” Gabriel thankfully didn't stammer. Sam made a swipe at his face, “No. No, other side. No, ok, don't hurt yourself. Bend down for me.” 

Gabriel smartly wiped the almond buttercream frosting off Sam's cheek. 

And there was a glorious and terrible moment where they both realized just what had happened and neither seemed to have any idea where to go from there. Sam's eyes widened at the sudden, overly intimate gesture. All of Gabriel's extremities went numb as he realized that drooling over too-young-boy had creeped into touching too-young-boy which clearly meant he had lost his mind and needed to vanish. 

Instead, Pamela walked into the kitchen, completely unaware and they stepped apart, looking away. Gabriel thoughtlessly licked the frosting off his fingertip. 

Sam made a weird sound of “thanks” and “bye” and maybe “It's ok” before all but sprinting from the kitchen. Gabriel wiped his hands hurriedly on his apron and started putting on his gloves.

“You do know you could tap that, right?” Pamela asked when Sam was out of earshot. 

“Aren't I paying you to do something besides interfere with my sex life?” 

“You mean, helping you _have_ a sex life?” 

“Go do something productive, Pamela.” 

“Go do someone, boss man.” 

Pamela smacked his ass as she passed to the office. 

***

As Gabriel stepped into Cas and Dean's apartment, he was once again struck with how much he liked Dean's influence on his baby bro. Where Castiel had been minimalist furniture and straight lines, Dean was distressed leather sofas and retro décor. Gabriel was admiring a tin with a bent over pin-up girl reaching for a beer when Dean showed up at his elbow with a bottle of microbrew. Castiel's taste was all over that one. 

“Thanks for finally coming over.” he said. 

“I feel bad that I didn't do it sooner.” 

“Yeah. You gotta be careful with him. He hasn't got much. Support system wise. I think he's afraid he let you down. He's not as cool as you thought he'd be so you're trying to faze out of his life.” 

“Oh. I wish he didn't think like that.”Gabriel glanced toward the kitchen where Castiel was washing dishes. 

“Me too. Honestly, you aren't really worth it.” Dean said.

Yup. Gabriel really liked his brother's boyfriend. 

They'd met Dean on one of his and Cas' first outings as brothers. Gabriel, being a human who was socialized as such, assumed that a bar was a perfectly innocuous place to meet for a beer. He clearly didn't know what he had signed up for. 

Cas was shy. 

He kept excusing himself to go to the bathroom to avoid stilted conversation and eye contact with strangers. Gabriel let him, hating himself for not feeling his brother out before they met up in person. So, while Castiel ran to the bathroom to escape, Gabriel did a little escaping of his own; ordering shots and mentally trolling the bar. Anything to distract himself from how badly he was botching this and how much better shy and serious Castiel deserved. Castiel needed love and family, not just a beer and a good time. Gabriel didn't have enough of either to give. 

So Gabriel was looking for a distraction. And he found one. A big one. Six foot something, broad as a billboard and big plush lips that were practically obscene just talking. 

Dean was a mechanic. Dean knew all the words to the Zeppelin song that played on the jukebox. Dean was totally down to fuck. Gabriel was about to pull out the 'lets find a nice alleyway or the back of someone's car' moves when he caught Dean looking over his shoulder at Castiel who had just came out of the bathroom with all the confidence of Bambi's first steps. 

Then that was it. Game over. 

Dean was also very sweet. He offered Castiel his chair. He asked Castiel about his job. It was loud. Castiel was obviously unnerved and Dean asked if they wanted to get out of there. That thing that Gabriel should have offered an hour ago, when Castiel's eyes got big and round as the flaming waiter offered them cosmos. Dean suggested they go to the diner down the street where they could hear each other. He asked them both, but his eyes hadn't left Castiel since his little brother stumbled into Dean's life. 

So Gabriel faked a work emergency and left them to it. Sure, Dean was down to fuck. But he was also down to fall in love and down to build a family out of it. Gabriel was glad that Dean saw Cas; they needed each other and Gabriel knew that he couldn't be in a relationship where anyone needed anything from him at all. He didn't have a big, open heart to give Dean like Cas did. He didn't have that sort of kindness or sympathy to give Cas like Dean did. So, Gabriel got to be an awesome big brother without anyone actually having to ask anything of him at all. 

Dean cleared his throat and nodded with his head toward the porch. This was it. The only thing Dean had ever asked Gabriel for. Gabriel took a pull of beer and followed. He started creating lists of reasons he couldn't follow through in his head. 

“So.” Dean said, “I know Cas told you I have a favor to ask.”

“You know, I'm pretty busy at work and stuff...”

“Look, it's just I've got this brother. And he's a good kid. The thing is he just came out to me and our Dad after he broke up with his fucking fiance. He got this studio across town and he's not working so he doesn't have a great deal of money...”

“Oh, a job. I can give a kid a job.” Gabriel said, with a sigh of relief. 

“No. I mean, maybe. He's being real tight lipped about the whole thing. He doesn't want me to visit. He doesn't want me to call too much. He says he needs space to find himself or whatever that means. He's still in school, so I don't know if he could actually work at your cafe. With the hours and all. I just need someone to keep an eye on him for me...”

“I don't know, Dean.” Gabriel stalled, “I mean, I'm so busy. And I've got Angie and everything...”

“C'mon, isn't there some kind of code with us? Help a new gay out. He's just on his own for the first time in a really big way. I don't like it, ok. I just want to check up on him but still give him his space.”

“You want me to spy on him but you still want him to think you're giving him his space,” Gabriel corrected. Dean gave a rueful smile. “How old is he anyway?”

“He just turned twenty four.” 

Gabriel almost did a spit take. “Are you trying to hook me up with your _younger_ brother? You know I'm forty, right? He's not going to want to go out with me. Ask one of your other friends.” 

“I don't... I don't actually have any” Dean said, looking down at the bottle in his hands as he leaned against the rail.

“You have zero other gay friends besides me?” Gabriel asked, deflating. 

Dean looked to the bottom of his bottle, “No, ok? None that I haven't fucked. I only have exes. I don't want to call them, can't ask them because I know that most of them are shit bags and the ones that aren't... we'll the ones that aren't were the ones who thought they loved me and I can't call them when I've got Cas. He doesn't have any exes at all.”

“Dean, bud, he's not gonna want to talk to me.” Gabriel said quietly.

“Well, can't you just maybe meet him for coffee? Walk him home one night? I don't see how that is really asking too much.” 

No, Gabriel figured, a man like Dean probably wouldn't. 

Gabriel got the feeling that he wasn't used to not knowing every detail of his brother's life. There was some loyalty there. Something Gabriel had read in books but never seen for himself.

“Can I give you his number at least? In case you change your mind?” Dean asked, “It's just... he's my baby brother, you know? And with all this shit... I mean, everything in his life has done a 180 in the past year. He's so different. He's like a grown-up. He doesn't want to run to me with all his problems anymore. I used to be able to threaten bullies and help him ask girls out. That was it. Those were the extent of his problems. But now...” Dean drained his bottle of the last few drops, “I just don't know how to help him when he won't let me see him.” 

Gabriel was silent for a beat. 

“Ok. I'll take his number. But I can't promise anything.” Dean grinned, fishing a napkin from his pocket and scribbling something down. It was dark. Gabriel didn't even read it before he slipped it into his coat pocket. “You're a good brother, Dean.”

“Trust me, I almost never feel like it.” Dean gave a dry smile. Castiel walked out to the porch, holding another two beers for his brother and his boyfriend. 

“Thanks, Cas.” Gabriel said as Cas opened his bottle for him. 

Cas smiled and dropped his eyes. 

“Hey, Gabriel, want to hear something stupid?” Dean asked broadly. All vulnerability gone from his expression, “Cas here has never seen _Kill Bill_.” 

“That's not acceptable.” Gabriel turned his attention to Cas with Dean's. Dean slid his arm around Castiel's lower back. 

“That's what I said.” Dean smiled at Gabriel over his beer bottle. He rubbed his hand on Cas' hip up and down his side. “So, I guess you'll have to hang out for a bit and watch it with us.” 

Cas looked shyly out from behind his own beer. Gabriel never felt like a good brother either. But the difference had always been that Dean tried. 

“Yeah. Guess so.” He said.

Dean wrapped one arm around them each; he was good at that. Touching without it seeming like a big deal. 

“Ok, you knuckle heads,” Dean said, “Let's get some more beers and make this a night, eh?”

Castiel smiled softly, gratefully. Gabriel, once again, was reminded how much he liked his brother's boyfriend.

***

Gabriel was tipsy.

Maybe a bit more than tipsy... maybe he shouldn't have driven himself home. 

But Dean sat him and his brother next to each other, made them hold the popcorn and kept their hands full of beer. Castiel smiled along, let himself be cajoled, always much more agreeable with Dean than he was with Gabriel. 

Gabriel obediently drank the beers he was handed. Took Dean's specialty shot, the 'purple nurple' from his bar tending days. Let himself sit there and pretend he was comfortable until he was buzzed enough to convince himself he was. But not drunk enough, never drunk enough to pretend that he could sleep it off on Dean's leather couch. Drink Castiel's organic coffee with them in the morning. Pretend he was that comfortable for that long. 

He said he had work in the morning and it was true enough. Even though Pamela would be more than able to open by herself and more than happy if she thought Gabriel was actually participating in the world for once. But, Gabriel had created this life of his own that gave him a perfect excuse to always stay out of arm's reach. 

Angie sprinted out of his bedroom as he walked into his apartment, her stubby tail wagging as she raced toward him, sniffing frantically. He let her get her fill as he read the note Sam left on the counter. 

_She was nothing but an angel. We went for a walk at eight but she was restless and too cute to resist, so we went for another one at ten. Thanks again for all you've been doing for me. I really appreciate it. It's no trouble to check in on her. Really. At all._  
Please feel free to let me to know if you want me to take her out again tomorrow or whenever you work. I'm always happy to help with anything you need. Anything at all.  
\- Sam. 

By the time Gabriel finished reading, Angie had decided that Gabriel was about as boring as he usually was, and trotted back toward his bedroom where she was probably curled up on his pillow. 

Gabriel was tipsy. Too tipsy for something so mundane as sleep. 

That was why he headed back out into the landing, down to the sad, dark corner of the hallway and knocked on the door there. Sam's door, the only other one on the floor. 

Sam answered, and Gabriel was, once again shocked at the sheer size of him. And the firmness of him. His broad chest, his skin pulled as tight as a kettle drum over his arms. Strong and smooth and everything that it should be. 

Sam was wearing a thin white undershirt with ribbing. Gabriel had to remind himself not to touch. Sam cleared his throat and Gabriel realized he was staring. Sam didn't seem mad, though. He was smiling when Gabriel's eyes made it all the way up to his face. 

Gabriel was supposed to say something here. Something witty and sexy to counteract the creepy of just showing up. Any minute now. 

Sam wordlessly stepped aside, letting him in. He shut the door behind him. 

“Are you a little drunk?” Sam asked, his voice graveled with sleep or seduction, Gabriel couldn't tell. There was a teasing quality to it. A flame, basking in the attention of the moth. 

“Yeah. Been drunk before. Lots before. I'm good at being drunk. I've been wasted more times than you, I bet.”

“Is that so?” Sam humored him, led him to the couch with a hand on his shoulder. Gabriel let himself be maneuvered down. He made room for Sam as Sam sat next to him on the sofa. 

“Yeah. Yeah. There's a rule, Sam. A rule you should know because you're so young.” Gabriel gulped, Sam's eyes tracked his face, his mouth, his throat. Gabriel was drowning in it. “Never show up at someone's door late at night when you're drunk.” 

“No?”

“No. It's dangerous. Shouldn't get yourself alone with someone when you're like this. Not unless... not unless you want to get taken advantage of.” 

“Yeah?” Sam breathed. 

He was close. Gabriel was leaning in, practically pitching forward, clumsy and desperate. Sam met him half way. They kissed. 

Then, miraculously, it was Sam's tongue that was pushing against his mouth, not so much begging entrance as it was impatiently demanding it. Gabriel groaned shamefully as he let Sam's tongue in. 

Sam was a ferocious kisser. Huge hands cupped his head as Sam counted his molars, fucked against his tongue like waves. Then Sam's tongue was retreating. 

Gabriel chased it, wanting to keep it, keep Sam inside him as long as he could, but Sam was sucking his lip into his mouth, teeth tracing the delicate nerves along there. 

“Fuck, fuck,” Gabriel moaned, his hands finally getting into the game, sliding from Sam's shoulders to his waist, to his lap because a drunken booty call was no time to be coy. 

Sam pulled away from the kiss to watch Gabriel's fingers make quick work of the sweatpants, sliding them and his boxers down in a quick go, only getting them as far as his knees. Sam was hard. God thank all the stars that aligned, Sam was hard as a rock. A droplet of precome bubbled at the slit and Gabriel chased it like gold, wrapped his mouth over the head of Sam's cock without preamble. Sam sighed, tossed his head back against the couch. He grabbed the couch cushions, fisting the edges to keep control and not grab Gabriel's head. Gabriel wanted nothing in the world as much as he wanted Sam to lose control, fuck his face as brutal as he wanted. It had been a while, a long long while since Gabriel had been this horny. He wanted to destroy something in his wake. 

He pulled his mouth off of Sam, looked up his body at him and, just... Sam was so utterly wrecked looking, his lips pink and swollen, still shining with spit from their kiss. Slender eyes were half lidded and stupid, mostly pupil at this point. Sex, was what the look was called and Gabriel was still having a bit of a time wrapping his head around the fact that it was sex with him. 

“Warn me before you shoot.” Gabriel said. Sam nodded quickly, eager to obey and get on with it. Gabriel continued, “Because I want you to fuck me tonight, so you can't come yet.” 

Sam lurched forward, flipping them so that Gabriel was on his back, legs framing Sam's hips between them. Sam attacked him, then, his mouth heading straight for Gabriel's chin and neck. Not kissing but biting and claiming him all the way down. Sam paused and leaned up, grabbing the hem of Gabriel's shirt and pulling up until Gabriel sat forward and started helping out. Sam moved his hands down to Gabriel's pants and got started there. There was some fumbling before his pants ended up on the floor with his shirt and what was left of his dignity. He was naked and spread on the couch, grossly unfair when he looked up at Sam, who was still wearing his tank top and sweatpants around his thighs. Sam, who was probably so much nicer to look at than Gabriel. He had rolls where Sam was taut. He had wrinkles where Sam was firm. 

But Sam was just sort of staring. 

Sam's massive hands wrapped around his ribcage, thumbs arching up to trace over Gabriel's nipples and turn him into putty in Sam's hands. Sam was stroking so slowly, too slowly, because Gabriel was drunk and half positive that Sam was going to change his mind. This tender touching, the intimacy of Sam's gaze, was kind of asking a lot of him. 

Gabriel wrenched himself from Sam's grip and rolled onto his knees, his arms braced on the side of the couch. He arched his ass upward. 

“You gotta fuck me, man. Please, Sam. Need it.” 

Sam didn't say anything, but he did put his hands back on him, thankfully. Gabriel let himself be lost in the manhandling, then Sam's hands were at the globes of his ass, spreading his cheeks apart. 

“Yeah. Sam, yeah.” Gabriel babbled. 

Then Sam's tongue swept over his hole and Gabriel jumped, crying out in shock. Sam was so pretty, he didn't think he'd do that on the first go. Boys that looked like Sam didn't need to. Sam froze at Gabriel's cry, but he couldn't stop there.

“Wasn't expecting it. Do it again, Jesus, please, do it again.” 

Sam did, pressing his face into the crease between his cheeks and going to town with a truly unheard of level of enthusiasm. Gabriel had never had his ass eaten so hard before. It was too much but it was teetering on the edge of not nearly enough. Gabriel let out a sob of pleasure into the arm of the couch. 

“You'll make me nut, just fuck me already.” Gabriel pleaded, “Want you inside me before I come.” 

“Don't have... anything...” Sam said breathlessly, “I don't have lube or a condom.”

Gabriel made a frustrated noise into his forearm. 

“Gabriel, do you have some?”

“Yeah, at my place. It's too far, gotta have you now. Just lotion or spit, I do this all the time I should be fine.” Sam still wouldn't put his hands back on him. Gabriel was about to scream, “I'm clean.” He grunted, “Last I checked, I'm clean and it's been a while since I've done this with another person, so just go ahead. Just do it, I don't care.” 

Gabriel breathed a sigh of relief into his forearm as Sam spread his ass open again, huge fingers to fit the huge kid started running over his hole, feeling out the rim of him. Sam's thumb snagged on the pucker and Gabriel's whole body broke out in shivers.

“Quit teasing, kiddo. Fuck me like a man.” 

Sam's thumb breached him then, sending Gabriel lurching forward into the sofa arm as his ass preformed acrobatic tricks to keep Sam's finger in him. Sam slipped a second finger in, prying Gabriel open. Sam's tongue joined the party again, darting into the space left by his fingers. 

“Yeah, alright,” Gabriel groaned, “Yeah, just like that. Ok, good enough, just get in me. It's late and I have work in the morning.” 

Sam was silent again. Gabriel would be worried if it weren't for the cock head penetrating him at a mind numbingly slow pace, almost brutal in its precaution. Gabriel was shaking, holding himself from leaning back and fucking himself if the kid was going to be so gentle about it. 

Sam spoke, then, for the first time in what felt like forever. “Oh, wow,” he moaned. Gabriel felt the hairs of Sam's crotch brush against his own. Sam held there, hands rubbing soft, soothing circles into Gabriel's hips and stomach. 

And it would be sensual and intimate if it weren't for Gabriel's fleshy middle or spare tire. They weren't lovers. They didn't stare sweetly into each others' eyes. That was some lesbian shit. Something Dean and Cas probably did every night. But that wasn't something Gabriel had in him. He shoved his hips back enough to knock Sam off balance, falling on his ass onto the couch. Sam's cock slipped free and Gabriel took the opportunity to turn and straddle Sam's hips. He sank back down onto Sam's cock, grinding his hips hard, making Sam's breath catch and his chest spasm. 

“Yeah, kid, fuck yeah,” Gabriel groaned as he picked up a rhythm. 

Sam's torso shone with sweat, his arms raised above his head holding the back of the couch for support as Gabriel rode him. His pits were reeking of man and musk. Gabriel braced his fists beside Sam's head, fucking harder, faster. Sam's hands wrapped around his wrists, holding him there. Gabriel allowed it, and after a few more minutes, Sam's body was locking, his pulse skipping underneath salty skin. Gabriel could track the movement. He made an animal face, his eyes pulled tight, his lip curled up as he shot his load into Gabriel's ass. 

Sam kept his eyes closed, his face slack and blissed out as Gabriel rolled his hips, trying to get as much friction as he could while Sam was still hard. Sam opened his eyes, blue and green with yellow sunflowers around his pupil. He gave a heavy lidded blink before he raised his hand and laid it against Gabriel's hips on his body, rocking faster and faster against his softening dick.

“It'd be so hot if you came just off my cock,” Sam murmured, finally finding the words Gabriel had been waiting for. 

Gabriel fell forward, into the crease of Sam's neck and shoulder, mouthing there hotly until he felt it. He bit down as he spurted his come onto Sam's stomach. 

“Oh, fuck,” Gabriel murmured. “Oh, for fucks sake... fuck.” 

Sam chuckled. Maybe. But Gabriel was tipsy, and the pull of alcohol was turning his eyes to lead. With effort, he hauled himself up out of Sam's sweaty hot arms.   
Sam looked up at him, sleepy, quiet eyes inscrutable as Gabriel started fishing around the floor for his clothes. He got his shirt and pants on; one sock in his hand and one he assumed was gone forever. 

“So, yeah. Thanks.” Gabriel said awkwardly. 

Sam's brow furrowed, but only for a moment before Sam looked away and then back up to him. 

“You're welcome.” Sam said. He didn't make a move to get up from the couch. Gabriel aimed himself toward the door. 

“Stop by tomorrow, if you want breakfast again.” Gabriel said. Sam nodded, looked down at the floor. “For walking Angie tonight. Thanks for that.” 

“It's really not a problem,” Sam said, “I enjoy doing it. I wanted to do it, too. So... it was no trouble at all.” 

“Ok.”

“Yeah.” Sam said. “Yeah, ok.”

“So, then, yeah. Ok. Good night.” 

“Night.” Sam called as Gabriel opened and shut the door behind him. 

He got to his apartment and crashed onto the couch. Sleep found him there. He passed out before he remembered to set his alarm. 

***

Gabriel woke up with his face in Angie's stomach. 

She had joined him on the couch in the middle of the night. Gabriel had the taste of fancy beer and cheap liquor shots and sex lingering in his mouth. He sat up, groaning as he did so because his head gave a heavy thump of disproval. Too old to be getting that drunk when he had work in the morning. 

Fuck. It was way too sunny outside to be 4 am. 

“Shit, fuck, shit, balls, fuck, fuck, fuck ok.” Gabriel rubbed his eyes and slapped his cheeks to snap himself out of it. Angie stood and trotted to the door, already a few hours late for her morning walk. 

“In a minute,” Gabriel said to her expectant gaze. Gabriel checked his phone. Only one missed call from Pamela despite missing his shift two hours ago. Crap.  
Angie pressed her face against the door.

“I'm coming, I'm coming” Gabriel hauled off the couch, fishing something clean from his closet as he dug Angie's leash free from the hook near the door. They walked to the edge of the block before they turned. Angie didn't seem to read Gabriel's stress level at all and was leisurely sniffing a street post when Gabriel simply picked her up and headed back to his apartment. He looked in the window of his cafe. 

It was open. It looked clean enough. There was no evidence of any fire that he could see. 

He dropped Angie off with a handful of dog treats as apology for the short walk. 

“You're three hours late, boss man.” Pamela sang as Gabriel stepped into the kitchen. Dishes were piled up. His poor manager had flour in her hair. 

“Shit, fuck, I know. Thanks for taking care of it, Pamela.” Gabriel murmured, tying his apron. Pamela didn't look angry in the slightest. 

“Pretty boy was here this morning.” She hummed, handing him his hat. 

“Sam.” 

“That's the one.” Pamela agreed. She sipped a cup of coffee as Gabriel started tackling some of the piled dishes in the sink. “He was very polite.”

“Yeah. That's one thing. Kid is pretty nice.” Gabriel said. 

Sam let him in. Sam sat him down on the sofa.

Sam kissed him. 

“He wouldn't say so to my face...” Pamela drawled, obviously ramping up to something, “But I think he might have been looking for you.” 

Gabriel ignored her, loading the tray of dishes into the washer.

“Tense much?” Pamela switched her coffee from one hand to the other. She narrowed her eyes at Gabriel. She was always able to smell the blood in the water. “Woah. What happened between you guys?”

"Nothing. He a nice kid. He walked my dog. That's all."

"Yeah, I'll be he did. Wish he'd walk _my_ dog sometime."

"Let's drop it. Ok?"

"What? Why? Something totally happened. Nothing ever happens with you. Just tell me every tiny detail." 

“No. Why do you always want to talk about it?” Gabriel snapped. “Jesus, Pamela. Are you so sick of your own pathetic fuck fest of a life that you need to start making up bullshit for mine. You're predictable, Pamela, and the guys you take home are trashy so what does that make you, huh? Kindly fuck off and leave me alone. You never see me prying at your love life because it is so pathetic.” 

Pamela just stared at him. Gabriel froze, the regret washing over him, as it always did, eventually. 

She stood still long enough to let him see her eyes getting misty and hurt before she deliberately placed her coffee cup on the counter and turned, walking off to another part of the kitchen. 

And, so, Gabriel was alone again. With no one to talk to him or take an interest in him. So he could work in peace without people asking anything as simple as friendship from him. Without anyone giving favors of attention and camaraderie; things he would never be able to pay back. 

***

Pamela left right when her shift ended. Merely grunting to Gabriel as she gathered her purse from the office as she left. 

He should have apologized. He wanted to apologize. He still didn't, though. 

Gabriel walked up stairs to his apartment, greeting Angie with a small ear scratch. He dropped onto the couch. She climbed onto his lap. “I know, honey. I'm sorry he didn't walk you today.” 

She stared blankly at him. Her tail thumped against his leg.

Gabriel didn't want to think about it. 

About the way that Sam's tongue tasted, or how hard his cock was even before Gabriel got a hand on it. The way Sam was so quiet. Hesitant, almost. Like maybe he was wracking his brain for images of tits and pussy and some pretty pornstar version of that ex of his with the dog he liked so much. 

Gabriel had stumbled to his door and been so horny, so fucking needy. And Sam had been too polite to turn him away. Too nice to reject him when Gabriel bent over and begged for it. 

Gabriel didn't want to think about it. 

So Gabriel fed his dog. And he got ready for bed, turning off his TV and brushing his teeth when there was a knock at his door. 

Angie barked, so there was no way that Gabriel could pretend that he hadn't heard it. Angie stood at the door, tail swaying, and looked expectantly back at him. She barked again. 

Gabriel had a general idea of who would be on the other side of the door. It was still a shock, though, to see all that broad chest in front of his face. One day, surely, Sam's mere mass wouldn't surprise him. Sam muscled his way into the apartment, Gabriel didn't put up much of a fight. Sam had his face in his hands before the door even closed. He had Gabriel's mouth in a vicious, clumsy kiss.

Angie sniffed his shoes, vibrating with excitement. Sam broke away.

“You said I shouldn't...” he murmured, “Unless... I wanted to get taken advantage of...”

“Sam...” Gabriel moaned and then Sam was kissing him again. Gabriel was leading- or maybe Sam was- either way they were stumbling along Gabriel's apartment, toward the bedroom, without breaking apart. Sam had Gabriel's tee shirt in fistfuls. Gabriel's hands were tangled in Sam's hair and showed little interest in moving along any time soon. 

Sam pressed him against a wall, his knee between Gabriel's, his lips and teeth tugging on Gabriel's mouth like he wanted to keep that with him. Sam started rolling his hips, and Gabriel picked up his rhythm. Hard cock bumped against hard cock. Sam's hands slid down his back, under his sweatpants and clutching the swell of his ass, jerking it against him as he fucked Gabriel through their clothes. 

“I'm... drunk.” Sam muttered into his hair, “Sorry to just show up like this but I'm drunk.” 

He wasn't. There was a tang to his breath like beers and whiskey but a guy Sam's size could probably really throw them back. His speech, breathy and graveled as it was, was clear and exact. His step was confident and his hands were shaking, but not anymore than the last time. 

“Yeah.” Gabriel groaned, arching his back so his chest pressed to Sam's, sealing them together from knee to nipple, “Yeah.”

Gabriel wasn't going to be the one to call Sam's bluff when it was working out so well for him.

Sam's hands grabbed Gabriel's fleshy ass in handfuls. A finger brushed against his hole, still a little sore from the night before but nothing Gabriel couldn't grit his teeth through. Nothing Gabriel couldn't tolerate for the chance to have Sam inside him again. 

"I want to fuck you” Sam said hotly into Gabriel's hair. 

“Yeah,” Gabriel said stupidly, because what was he supposed to say to that? Gabriel was in the right place at the right time. Sam was so, so beautiful. How was he supposed to do anything besides spread his own cheeks and beg for it all over again? 

A dry digit was playing with the rim of him. Gabriel could put up with a lot in the name of sex with a hot young man, but he was too old for dry ass play. He took Sam's wrist, pulling the hand away from his ass.

Sam's brow furrowed. His face was flaming pink, his eyes were glazed with sex. 

Gabriel pulled the hand toward his mouth and wrapped his lips around a finger. Sam's eyes rolled to the back of his head as he shoved his erect cock into the triangle between Gabriel's parted thighs. Another finger pushed at his lips, beside the first, and Gabriel allowed it in. 

“Oh, jesus,” Sam whispered, as Gabriel took the third offered finger into his mouth, letting his lips stretch around the welcome intrusions. Sam just kind of stared at his mouth, gently pushing his fingers in and out like something else was between Gabriel's lips entirely. 

Sam slipped his hand from Gabriel's lips, surging forward and kissing him again, his wet fingers falling to the side. Gabriel put Sam's hand back down his pants, to his ass where Sam started easing him open again. 

An spit slick index finger slid home. Gabriel moaned into the kiss. 

“I've got stuff this time,” he said, “I've got lube now.” 

Sam just nodded, following as Gabriel went into the bathroom, throwing open the medicine cabinet and jerking a bottle of Swiss Navy down and into Sam's hand. Sam nodded curtly before pulling Gabriel's pants down, right there at the bathroom sink. A little thrill went down Gabriel's spine at the idea. He stepped out of his pants when they pooled at his ankles. 

Sam's fingers were drenched in lube when they came back up against his hole, massaging inside of him, gentle and cautious the way they should be.   
Gabriel couldn't stand too much more of it.

“Ok, I'm ready.” He said. Sam hesitated. “I said I'm ready, so fuck me.” Gabriel snarled through gritted teeth. 

There was box of condoms in the open medicine cabinet. Sam started to reach for it. 

“Not much sense in starting now, is there?” Gabriel asked.

Sam was silent, again, but he took his hand back from the open cabinet, resting his palm on Gabriel's shoulder as his other hand lined him up. The mushroom top of Sam's dick pushed against his poorly prepped hole. Gabriel braced himself on the counter. Gasping out an animal noise at the same time Sam shuddered behind him, the head of his cock engulfed in Gabriel's ass. 

Sam started rocking, then, little thrusts, shoving him deeper. Gabriel leaned over more, offering more room for him to do it harder, claim him harder.   
Sam was at the hilt, now, his balls tapping Gabriel's with every piston of Sam's hips. 

Gabriel dropped a hand to his lap, fisting himself. 

Sam's hand disappeared from his shoulder, reaching forward and slamming the medicine cabinet closed, leaving them both looking at the mirror side of the door. Gabriel looked down at his hands, away from the reflection of Sam, big and beautiful Sam, built like a god with dimples and the blush of a school boy. 

Because, as gorgeous as Sam's face, mid fuck, was sure to be, also in that reflection would be Gabriel. Forty and mediocre and all but given up.

Sam leaned forward, his mouth moving wet and clumsy at the back of Gabriel's neck, his breath stirring up all the sensitive little hairs there. 

“Look up,” Sam murmured, pleaded more like, and it was the first thing Sam had explicitly asked of him. “Look up at me.” 

Gabriel looked into the mirror and his eyes met Sam's, just as unfocused and horned up as he expected . And beautiful, with sweat on his chest catching in the tacky bathroom light. From where Gabriel was bent, he could see all the muscles of Sam's stomach flutter, he could see Sam's knuckles whiten on his shoulder. 

“Look at me,” Sam pleaded again. Gabriel did, and then Sam came with such force that Gabriel's knees knocked the bathroom counter.   
Gabriel kept stroking himself furiously, thinking about the lines in Sam's abs and the way his hair stuck to his face and then Sam was turning him, pulling his cock out and making Gabriel whimper as it tugged at his abused rim. Sam shushed an apology before dropping to his knees. 

“Watch me,” Sam murmured as he took Gabriel's cock between his lips. It was a wet, sloppy excuse for a blowjob but Sam's enthusiasm made Gabriel's gut twist with orgasm before it had much reason to. 

Sam's eyes never left his, so raw and naked that Gabriel heard his plea even as Sam's mouth was stuffed full, _look at me_.

Gabriel did. And then Gabriel came.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Major trigger warnings for mentions of suicide and mental illness.

Gabriel woke up alone the next morning. 

Angie had abandoned him and stood at the front door expectantly. She probably heard Sam move about as he got ready for his run. It was becoming a bad habit; her listening for his footsteps outside their door. Not in the slightest because it made Gabriel listen too. 

Gabriel's phone lit up again as he got a call. 

“Hey, Deano. This is early, isn't it?” Gabriel rolled from his tight position on the couch to sit up, his back cracking in protest as every vertebrae let their discomfort be known. The clock on the cable box told Gabriel it was five in the morning. He rubbed his eyes.

“Cas said this was the best time to call.”

Gabriel rolled his eyes and sat up. Angie trotted into the room to stare at him; a silent reminder that she was owed a walk. 

Gabriel reached for his pants as Dean pressed on, “So, I talked to my little brother yesterday.” Dean said. Gabriel braced himself. “He said no one has called him.” 

“It's just that I've been busy, that's all.” 

“Look, Gabe, he's just a kid, alright? He needs some friends.”

“I'm sure he has plenty of friends, just none of them report back to you.” Gabriel looked under the coffee table for his shoe.

“I don't think so, man. He was kinda shy in high school. Even in college he had his fiance and stuff but he doesn't talk about the friends he had when they were together anymore. I think maybe... maybe he doesn't really have much going on. He's never been great at putting himself out there. I bet he's at home, alone, jacking off like a weirdo loser or something--”

“Oh, well, then just let me give him a call, he sounds like great company.”

“Don't be an ass, Gabriel.” Dean sighed. Gabriel held his tongue. Dean already knew he was a bad brother. He was learning that Gabriel was a piss poor excuse for a friend too. “He just... needs to get taken out of his shell a bit. Drag him to a movie or something. And maybe walk him home? This isn't just about being his friend, it's...So he was telling me about this guy in his building; a real creeper. Like, some old fag with a persian rug and a poodle or something who just sits by the door and waits for him to leave for class. And he's like, 'oh, you can come over and play with my dog _any time_ ' or 'oh, won't you come in and have some of my fresh baked cookies.' This guy is just always there. I mean, it's practically a windowless van with a free candy sign, if you catch my drift. And the way my brother is.. he's too nice. He wouldn't tell him to fuck off or ignore him. He'd be really polite and listen to the old guy complain about his arthritis or whatever. I think he'd be polite enough to give the guy a hand, if you know what I mean. So maybe if that old guy saw you drop him off? He would think that he had a boyfriend and would back off a bit. He sounds like he's getting pretty pervy.”

“Dean...”

“Look, I just don't want his first time to be him guilted into a blow job by some manipulative pedo. I would tell the guy to back off myself if I could... But my brother doesn't know what he's doing. He's clean. And he's nice and this pervert keeps trying to worm his way into his pants and it'll ruin everything. This guy is gross. I can just tell.”

“He's a virgin?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I think so. He needs some guidance, man. Just a little nudge in the right direction. He needs that perv off his back. And... I miss him. Ok? Is that what you wanted to hear? I miss my little brother and he's out there with all these people who want to use him and you can't believe anyone. I did my big brother job too well; he trusts everybody. He's going to get hurt and I need to know who to kill when that happens.” 

“You can't watch out for him all the time,” Gabriel sighed. 

Dean tactfully didn't point out how rich it was that Gabriel was giving sibling advice. Gabriel really did like his brother's boyfriend. 

“Call him. He doesn't bite. He's a smart kid. He's just an idiot.” 

“Sure, fine, whatever. I'll give him a call. Angie's going to wet herself if she doesn't get her walk soon. I gotta go, Deano.”

Gabriel hung up before Dean had a chance to say goodbye.

***

Pamela wasn't talking to him. He deserved that. She was owed an epic apology and that just wasn't something Gabriel had ay idea how to do. She had always deserved much better than this cafe. 

So he spent the day letting her punish him when his barista, Kevin, came back and told him there was a customer looking for him. 

Sam still looked too big. He gave a shy smile. He looked so beautiful like that. Gabriel returned it, some sort of facial reflex he hadn't been able to stamp out yet. 

“Hey, uh, so.” Sam said eloquently. 

“Yeah.” Gabriel replied, matching him.

“And... so, last night was sort of...”

“It's fine.” Gabriel said warmly. Uncharacteristically. Gabriel glanced down at the counter, the youthful shine in Sam's eyes made him feel clumsy and giddy. Nothing like how he had become.It was enough to make him give too much and want too much in return. It was enough to make him a prize idiot. “Don't worry about it. Anytime.” Crap. Maybe it already had.

“Really?”

“Sure.” 

“Ok.”

“Yeah. Ok.” Gabriel said. Sam stood there dumbly, expectantly. “So, uh, Angie really missed you yesterday,”

“Really?” 

“Yeah, really.” Gabriel said, reaching in his pockets, “If you're done with your classes... Here's the key... If you wouldn't mind walking her around the block. She  
looks forward to seeing you. If you aren't busy, of course. If you don't mind.”

“Yeah. I'd like that.” Sam said, taking it. “I like... doing... that. So, really, it's not trouble at all.” 

“Yeah. Ok. I'll see you tonight then.” Gabriel said. Sam blushed, “To... pick up the key.” 

“Sure.” Sam smiled guiltily. Gabriel returned it without thought. 

“Ok, then.”

“Yeah. Ok.” Sam said, smiling stupidly and finally leaving the cafe, looking once over his shoulder as he was walking out. Gabriel watched him go. God, that ass was magnificent. 

Kevin cleared his throat behind him, snapping him out of it. “Shut up. And don't go gossiping to Pamela either.” 

Kevin gave a simpering smile before he mimed locking his lips with a key. Gabriel grunted and headed back to the kitchen where his manager still wouldn't look him in the eye and had every reason not to. Gabriel needed to clamp down on this, and soon. He needed to shut it down, recognize it for what it was. 

Things hadn't changed, after all. Even if Sam was gay, which seemed like the case now, after the night before, Gabriel was convenient. Kids did that these days, right? Friends with benefits? Brojobs? Sam liked his dog and he liked his food and he liked all the orifices that Gabriel spread open and wanton for him. Sam was young and pretty but mostly just incredibly young. Gabriel needed to snap out of it. Sam might be young enough to keep that sort of thing up, but Gabriel didn't know if he had it in him. 

Gabriel liked his life without obligation. He liked that no one asked much of him, but between the way Sam smiled and that pert ass, Gabriel couldn't be sure he could stop at just sexually submitting to Sam's whim. That kid... he made Gabriel want things that were supposed to be dead. 

He could be a fuck buddy. He couldn't be a boyfriend. Not, he reminded himself, that anyone was asking him to.

Pamela walked into the kitchen with a pile of paperwork Gabriel needed to sign. She dropped it on the counter beside him, without a word, before she turned back to the office. 

She never saw much point in hiding her hurt, so she wore it all out on her sleeve for Gabriel to see what he had done. Gabriel deserved it. 

Pamela proved it better than anyone; he couldn't even be a friend. The things he wanted and the things he was weren't always on the same page; he probably would never model underwear or be a millionaire either. Just because Pamela was a great employee and a cool woman didn't mean Gabriel could deal with that. Just because, once in his life, he wanted friends, didn't mean he had the tools to do anything with it. 

And then Pamela got hurt. 

So he started to poke holes in that balloon in his stomach that inflated whenever Sam smiled like that. Gabriel was only human, much to his disdain. So he had to inject lead into his heart when it got like this, put the poor thing out of its misery. 

***

Sam wasn't in his apartment when he got off. 

Gabriel paused outside his door, listening to the loud nothing happening behind the doors of that studio apartment. 

He thought for a minute, then tried knocking on his own door. 

Angie barked and Gabriel heard a distinct 'oh, crap' before there were heavy footsteps running toward him. The door flung open, before Sam's back was retreating toward the kitchen. Angie seemed torn between who was more interesting, deciding on Sam since he was the one running. 

Gabriel shut the living room door and followed, the smell of burning getting more pungent as he got closer to the source. 

“So, uh, what's going on, Sam?”

Sam turned off the stove top, moving the smoking pan to the back burner. 

“So, ah, before you get mad... see, I was trying to do a nice thing.” Sam turned to face him, but kept his eyes on the ground, like an overgrown kid who had broken something expensive. 

“Ok, so, I wanted to thank you, I guess, for being so nice to me. And, you know, feeding me and letting me hang out with Angie and... just... you know. The other stuff.” 

That was the closest either had come to saying it. They'd had sex. Brutal, beautiful, raw, needy sex. 

“So, you decided to start a fire in my kitchen?” Gabriel asked, his voice level.

“Um. Ok. I was trying to cook something for you... and my kitchen over there is just... well it's really just a hot plate and a microwave and your stuff is so nice... I'd hoped you wouldn't mind. I know I should have asked, but I wanted it to be a surprise.” 

The smoke wasn't going anywhere. Gabriel coughed before moving past Sam to open the window, airing it out. 

“And a surprise it was.” he said, fanning it a bit with his hand.

“I'm really sorry.” Sam said, “I was just... trying to be nice. It was dumb. I'm so sorry.” 

Gabriel's shoulders sagged. Damn, could Sam work that kicked puppy dog angle. 

“Jesus, kid, chill out. I'm not mad.”

“Really?”

“Well, confused, more like.” Gabriel looked into the pan, “Were you making me oily onion and garlic crumbs?” he asked as he lifted the pan and swirled the black sludge around.

“Falafels.” 

“Ah. They fell apart on you, huh?” 

“Yeah.” Sam said sheepishly. “Sorry... it seemed easier online. I'm just... sorry. Do you want me to go?” Sam looked down at his shoes, his shoulders rising to his ears. 

_Yes,_ Gabriel thought, _Before I go falling in love with pretty boys with big hearts like some idiot who doesn't know better._

“No.” Gabriel said, “Hand me the delivery menu in the drawer over there.” 

***

“So, when did you start baking?” Sam asked after his third falafel. 

Angie was sitting under the dinner table, her head resting on Sam's foot while she sat on Gabriel's. There were four empty bottles of beer on the table with the bags of take out food, empty and well sifted through. Gabriel had over ordered on food, despite Sam's protests. 

“I don't know. College, I guess. I dropped out after my mother passed. Needed something to do.”

“Oh.” Sam said. He dropped his gaze, “I'm sorry. Mine died too.” 

Sam's hand was sitting right there on the table. Gabriel wanted to touch it, grab it, hold it. The world wasn't such a scary place when someone took your hand and held you through it. Or so Gabriel had heard.

He still didn't.

“It's tough.” he said, finally. “To lose her young.” 

“I never knew my Mom. She died when I was a baby. My Dad raised me and my brother by himself. He worked a lot, he had to. My brother and I are close, though. Too close, sometimes. He can be a real jerk. But he's solid. Always got my back. It's a little much, though. Sometimes. He's always got my back and he never asks me to have his... makes me feel like I'm doing it wrong.” 

“I know how that is.” 

“You got a brother?”

“I got a few. More than a few. You only have the one?”

“Yeah. One big brother who fills all the overprotective cliches. Are yours older or younger?”

“Both? Maybe? I've only ever met one and he's younger. By a lot, actually.” 

“There's a story there.” Sam said, leaning back in his chair with his big hands lacing behind his head. 

“There is.”

Sam waited. 

“My father was a salesman. Bibles, to be specific. He travelled all over the country selling his bibles, and roasries and little trinkets with bible verses printed on them. Went to all the bible belt states and sold his things at fairs and stuff. He always had stories to tell.”

“He sounds like an interesting guy.” Sam said, smiling warmly. Settling into his chair for a good story. “I would like to know a guy like that,”

Gabriel raised an eyebrow, “Yeah, you and a lot of other people. Well, you and a lot of other women.” 

“Oh,” Sam reached for his beer, “So, uh, he cheated on your Mom?”

“Not exactly. He cheated on his wife with my mother. And he cheated on all his girlfriends with my mother, and he cheated on her with all of them. It gets sordid, in there.” 

“Yikes,” 

“Yeah, well, he was a charming guy. Tall. Handsome. Friendly. He was a real good salesman. And he was a man of God's word. Or, well, he chose certain words of God to follow. He never had much of an ear for that monogamy part. He ended up marrying all of his girlfriends, or at least all the ones he had children with. But only the one to Michael's mom is legal. Michael is one of my brothers, older than me, I think. Anyway, one of them figured out what he was up to and sent out a call to the rest of them, trying to tell them what was happening. My mother told him to fuck himself and I never saw him again. To my knowledge, the others did the same. Or at least enough of them did. I think he lives in Canada now.”

“Whoa. So, ah, how many kids are there?” 

“Nine of us, last I counted. A lot of them didn't want to be found. I assume some of them had mothers who refused to believe the accusations of his polygamy, so I don't know about those. A lot. Considering he was able to do it for so long. My mother wasn't surprised. She was hurt, I remember that, but she wasn't surprised.” Gabriel started moving the empty food containers to the bag for something to do with his hands, but Sam didn't get the hint that the conversation was over. 

Gabriel wasn't normal. He couldn't talk about this sort of thing like everyone else could. He was a terrible brother, a bad friend and an inadequate human. Sam was so beautiful though. Gabriel wished, not for the first time, that he was a different person entirely. 

“So, you and your brothers. You don't talk?”

“Well, we don't know each other. The only one I have any sort of a relationship with is my younger half brother. He, ah, he called around to all of us when his mother died. I think he was looking for our father but none of us had seen him. Dad was in the wind but the kid just kept calling. Fucking persistent little fucker. Knowing him now... like I do... it must have been really hard for him to do that. He is a shy guy. Real introverted, doesn’t like to cause a fuss. He blushes if a waitress calls him 'honey.' I can't imagine that people were nice to him about it. Everyone's pretending they put it behind them, like our Dad didn't betray all of us like that. And my little brother... he called anyway. He reached out and probably got his hand bit for his troubles more than once. It must have hurt like hell. I don't know what that's like. What it's like to want something that much.” Gabriel shrugged, “ He was young. He is young. His mom was sick for a long time. Then she died. I think the kid was lonely. He was looking for something and he decided on family. Except that he's gay, and all our father's children tended to fit into the bible thumping mold. He's a nice kid. Nicer than them. But no one seemed to want to have anything to do with him. He called me. I happened to be gay as well. And so he just moved out here from California, out of the blue. Just to be near me. And, it's got to be hard for the kid. He's an artist, but he didn't got to school for it or anything. He doesn't do crowds very well. He makes most of his money making fan art, from this book series he's a fan of. It's, ah, highly erotic fan art and not so much in an artsy way as it is in a pornographic way.”

Sam turned pink and laughed, “I like this guy already.” 

Even Gabriel offered a rueful smile, “There is a lot to like.” He said softly, “He's a weird, wonderful, sad, lonely, loving, optimistic kid. I'm sad that our life happened to him because he deserves a lot better. The world should change to be more like him, not the other way around. He's actually good at it, too. As good as you can be at drawing cocks.” 

Sam laughed. Big. Open. He made that look so easy. Being open and trusting without it seeming like a big deal. “God, your brother sounds awesome.” 

“So does yours,” Gabriel said. 

“So, what about you?” 

“What about me?”

“You said you wished your brother had a different life. What about you?”

“I'm fine.”

“You said your mother passed.” Sam ventured, he looked shyly down at the table, making it so much harder for Gabriel to get defensive, “Was she sick like his mom?”

“She was sick,” Gabriel said, after a minute, “In her way.” 

Sam nodded. Silence fell over the room and Gabriel had never talked about his mother's death to anyone. It was too much proof of the way he really was. So he didn't. He couldn't because it was one thing for people to think he was a certain way but Gabriel didn't think he'd survive if someone looked at him with that hate he always felt and knew under his skin.

Especially Sam. Because he smiled so big and open and trusting and hopeful. Sam, because he smiled like it was easy.

Which is why Gabriel didn't understand why his mouth started moving of it's own accord, spilling secrets that were supposed to be dead by now. 

“She died a little while after I went to college.” Gabriel said. Sam looked up, “She used to call me twice a day. First thing in the morning and right before bed. Sometimes I'd get to my dorm and find out she'd filled all of my answering machine with voicemails. She used to watch the news. She'd get so upset, so terrified about nuclear war and razorblades in candy. She'd hear something about rock and roll music being about satan and she'd break all my records. One time, she heard on the radio that teenagers were putting acid and pcp into their friend's soda pops at parties. She kept me home from school for two weeks. She threw out all the pictures I'd had of my friends. She'd heard about drunk driving being on the rise so she said she'd kill herself if I drove to work. She said I'd die if I went out 'there' and she couldn't die before me so she'd just kill herself. She was sick. 

“It got bad. Then it got really bad. Then it got worse than it had ever been before. I was at college when it got to the worst point. The neighbors were complaining because she was too afraid to take the trash from the house to the curb and it smelled. They decided she was a danger to herself. They put her in a home. They put her on meds. It seemed ok, for a while. I went to college. I had a life. 

“Things got rocky after that. She felt well enough that they put her in a halfway house. She got a job bagging groceries. But, she must have cut back her meds and not told anybody, because suddenly when she was calling me she was telling me about gossip she overheard in the checkout lanes. And she started reading the tabloid covers. The ones they keep by the register? And, it started again. But slower. And she was smarter this time. She knew to keep it a secret. 

“And I asked her to please, go back on the meds. And I begged her to go back to the home. She said the meds made her feel cold and numb. They just made her quiet. She once told me that the medicine filled her brain with fog and she just couldn't see the thoughts but she knew they were there. The medicine didn't cure her, it just made her more malleable. She could be their parrot and say polite things when spoken to. Do the dishes from dinner and watch TV with the rest of them before going to bed. She said that wasn't a life. That was Hell. This was the only time she was alive and why didn't I like her like that? Why did I only love her when she was dead?

“And she got worse. 

“I tried calling the place we put her the first time. But she needed to check herself in without any real proof that she was a danger to herself or anyone else... She was smarter this time around and she knew what they wanted to hear. 

“She was calling me four times a day. Crying if I missed a call. Threatening to kill herself when I tried to hang up. I couldn't take it anymore. I asked her to to stop calling. I wasn't even trying to get her to go back on the meds and go to the home and let someone take care of her. Not anymore. Sometimes she made me feel like I was going insane. It was just relentless. I was missing classes to answer the phone for her. Suddenly I was having these nightmares and I knew they were hers. I could hear her voice warning me about anthrax in my mail and I had these dreams where I was hiding from everything, all of it crashing down on me and trying prick my skin. They were her fears but I felt them and it felt like she was pulling me under the water with her. 

“One day I didn't answer. 

“I was sitting in my room, watching TV and I watched the phone ring. I just stared at it, hearing her in my head screaming that she would kill herself. It used to be the most horrible thing she could say to me, and she knew it. She threw it out when she dreamed about a bomb threat at my high school graduation. 'If you leave the house, I'll kill myself' 'If you listen to that music, I'll kill myself.' 'If you date that girl...' 'If you eat that food...' 

“She didn't leave a message on the machine.I knew something was wrong right then. She always left a message. She always left three messages. And I still... I should have called her back. I knew it, then. I knew this was different. 

“She didn't call that night either. I got a call the next morning. They wanted me to come down to the station and ID a body. She, ah, she'd jumped into the river.” 

Sam stood up, then. Suddenly, making Gabriel jump because he had sort of forgotten that Sam was there and that Angie was asleep on Sam's foot and that he had a styrofoam food container in his hand. 

Gabriel's eyes stung. Crap, had he been crying? He turned away and hastily wiped his eyes. Stupid, god, so fucking stupid and needy and pathetic. She died twenty years ago. He wasn't supposed to be crying anymore. He thought he had nipped that in the bud. 

Sam was still standing, unsure as Gabriel felt. And this was why he didn't do this. He didn't talk about his mother's suicide because he knew how it felt to not know the right thing to say or do. He knew how it was to be a witness to someone breaking apart and not knowing how to help. 

“It's fine. It's... sorry. I'm not usually so... gushy. I just, guess those beers went straight to my head. It was a long time ago. I try not to talk about it.” 

“Gabriel, I'm so sorry.” Sam whispered. Gabriel couldn't look at him. Sam hadn't heard the worst part yet and Gabriel couldn't stomach all that earnest understanding knowing that Sam would pull away once he knew the rest of the truth. 

“Thanks. Let's not... do this. This talking thing.” Gabriel said, “I'm not sure I'm up to it tonight.” 

Sam took a step forward and when Gabriel didn't look up, he did it again. A third step forward and Gabriel took a step back. A smaller step forward from Sam and Gabriel's back hit the kitchen wall. 

“Look at me.” Sam whispered and Gabriel was going to break if he did. “Gabriel, look at me.” Sam took his chin in his hand, easily as Sam had a big hand and Gabriel a rather weak chin. “I'm. So. Sorry.” He said. 

He did that thing that Gabriel had only seen in movies. His pretty eyes flitting from one of Gabriel's pupils to the other in fast little dances, like he was looking very hard and trying not to miss anything, reading everything in Gabriel's head like a book.

Gabriel wanted to be able to pull away. He wished he was strong enough to push Sam out of his arms, out of his apartment and his life. He didn't have time for earnest boys like Sam. He didn't have the heart for that sort of innocent intense love that was blooming behind Sam's eyes. 

He wished he was colder. That he could be so dead and frozen inside that he didn't want to cry for seeing Sam look at him like he might be fragile. 

He wished he was warmer. Gabriel wanted to smile like Sam, big and open. He wanted it to be easy.

But this in between... it was slowly killing him..

Sam leaned forward and kissed his forehead, hot breath in Gabriel's hair, tickling his eyelashes. Sam ducked down, bent his knees to kiss Gabriel on the nose while his huge thumbs rubbed slow circles into the swollen bags under Gabriel's eyes. Gabriel tipped his head up before Sam could pull back, kissed his pretty mouth like it was the last thing he could do. 

Gabriel coiled up to Sam then. Arching his back off the wall and pressing them together as though that might make the pit drop feeling in his stomach go away. Gabriel wrapped his arms around Sam's neck and Sam took over. Kept kissing Gabriel, pinning his hands on either side of the wall. 

Gabriel whimpered. He whined and he groaned and he made every sound he could and a few new ones he'd never known before. He let Sam hold his wrists by his head, happily captive as Sam tasted him. 

“Sam,” he finally muttered since Sam seemed content to kiss him into a coma right against the kitchen doorway. “Sam, take me to bed.” 

Sam pulled away, but he looked relieved to finally have an order to follow. “Okay,” he said, lacing his big fingers with Gabriel's human sized ones. “Okay,” he said again before turning and leading Gabriel to the darkened bedroom. 

He got to the foot of the bed before turning, spinning them so that Gabriel was in front and Sam was wrapped around his back like a heavy coat with roaming hands. The hands dipped, Gabriel felt them drop to behind his knees, slow but firm up the backs of his thighs and cupping his ass, rolling the soft flesh like dough in Sam's fingers.

Gabriel didn't think he could do another romp, his ass still raw from the previous nights. He didn't want to say that, though. He just wanted Sam to push him onto the bed and take him anyway Sam wanted. Gabriel just wanted Sam to want him. 

So he didn't say it, even as he felt himself being guided onto the bed, onto his stomach, Sam's heat never leaving his back. He spread his legs minimally and Sam fit between them, sitting up enough to slide a hand between Gabriel's spine his own chest to push Gabriel's shirt up. 

His mouth followed behind the rising fabric, warming the skin as the cold air hit it. Sam took it off and Gabriel let him, laying pliant and pathetic and needy and useless under Sam's capable hands. 

He wished he could ask for more. _Harder. Softer. Don't stop. Never stop._

But he didn't.

“Gabriel,” Sam breathed, “Gabriel.” 

He said it more like a mantra than a question. All of Gabriel's nerves buzzed when he did that. _More. Don't stop. Never stop._

Sam continued to lave hot kisses down Gabriel's back. His tongue doing more work than his lips by the end of it, following the dent of his spine all the way to the waist of his pants. His tongue dipped beneath the denim, toying at the very top of his cleft. 

Gabriel threw his hips up, surrendering without provocation and reaching down to his own pants to open them up. Sam let out an amused huff that Gabriel didn't have time to feel embarrassed about. He needed to be used up and wanted. Anything besides this empty feeling in his gut when he thought about all the things that Sam deserved and all the things he wasn't. 

Sam helped him out, taking the pants and pulling them all the way down, throwing them on the floor so Gabriel was just naked with his ass thrust up into the air. 

Sam spread his cheeks apart, looking at Gabriel's asshole. Gabriel knew it was probably puffy and red. An uninviting, inflamed looking thing. He put his head into his forearm on the pillow and arched his ass up some more. 

_Don't stop._

Sam's hot breath huffed into his vulnerable places, making him shiver and making him hard. Then it was Sam's tongue, eating him out like a woman. Gabriel made a choked sound, Sam hummed and kept at it. Gabriel felt Sam's nose against his lower back, Sam's chin tickling his taint. Sam's face was really in there, his tongue doing all the heavy lifting, circling Gabriel's rim then pushing inside.

Gabriel clenched the sheets, curled his toes against the fabric of the bed, wanting nothing more than to melt into it. Sam started making hungry sounds, moaning against his ass like it tasted good. 

Finally Sam grabbed Gabriel's hip, rolling him forcefully onto his back. 

Sam's face was a mess, saliva from his mouth to his chin and his eyes blown like an addict. Without waiting more than a beat, Sam descended onto Gabriel's cock, slurping it down messy and loose and so hot Gabriel was going to explode. 

“Don't stop.” Gabriel moaned, the words slipping out before he remembered that he didn't know how to say them, “Never stop.” 

Sam hummed in agreement, wrapping his fist around Gabriel's dick and pumping where his mouth couldn't reach. Gabriel looked down at him. 

Sam met his eyes. Gabriel came. 

Sam swallowed most of it, the rest dribbling off his lips with all the other spit and mess. 

_Don't leave_ Gabriel wished he could say as Sam pushed himself up, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. “You're hard.” Is what he actually said.

“Yeah, but don't worry about it.” Sam said, Gabriel looked blankly at him. Sam chuckled. Maybe 'giggled' wouldn't be too far off. “ You're so sleepy. I'm going to go get the lights in the kitchen.” 

“You don't have to.” Gabriel said, but he was too fucked out to actually get up. 

“I know.” Sam said, heading toward the kitchen anyway. 

After a few minutes, Gabriel heard the trash being collected. He heard Angie's water bowl being filled. He heard Sam kick off his shoes. 

The light went out, but there was a still a silhouette in his doorway, lit from behind by street lights. 

Sam was waiting for an invitation. _Don't leave_. Gabriel thought, _Don't leave even though you should. Stay, even if there isn't anything for you here._ But, of course, Gabriel didn't know how to say that.

Instead, Gabriel scooted to his side of the bed, leaving the other side wide open. Enough room for a reasonably sized person but probably a bit cramped for Sam. 

Sam climbed into the bed anyway. Gabriel let himself be pulled flush against Sam's front, his naked skin too hot against Sam's cotton shirt.

Gabriel heard Sam's heartbeat slow as the kid fell asleep. 

***

It was early when Gabriel heard Sam moving around. 

“Hey,” Sam whispered as he saw Gabriel blink up at him. “Hey, I'm going for my run. I was going to take Angie for her walk. You need to be up soon for work, right?” 

Gabriel looked at the clock. 

“No.” he said, “I'm going to come in late today.”

“Can you do that?” Sam asked, tying his shoes as Angie danced around his feet. 

“Pamela can open by herself. She's good. Better than I deserve.” 

Sam kissed his forehead like it was natural and easy. Gabriel couldn't help but marvel at that. 

“You always say stuff like that. You do know that you're the only one who thinks that way, right?” 

Gabriel grunted and rolled back over to go to sleep. 

“I'm going to leave my number on the counter, alright? Text me today so I can get the keys and take Angie for a walk after class.”

“Sam--” Gabriel warned.

“Gabriel.” Sam said, mimicking his tone but pairing it with a dimpled grin. 

“It's too much. You're doing too many favors.” 

“It's no trouble.” Sam said, “I've told you before; I like to do it. Angie and I have fun on our walks, don't we girl? Besides, you paid for dinner last night when I was supposed to be doing the nice thing for you. Remember?” 

“Sam” Gabriel started again. The kid didn't get it. You don't just hop into someone's life before you know them. You don't just smile so big and open. Take out their trash and walk their dog and sleep in their bed like it's easy. 

But Gabriel could see how Sam could get the wrong idea. He was a kid. He didn't know better. Gabriel had cried last night and told Sam a story he hadn't told anyone in twenty years. Sam thought he knew him now, but Sam had never heard the worst part of the whole thing. 

Sam took Gabriel's sticky silence as defeat. He kissed Gabriel again, fast and chaste. 

“See you this afternoon, Gabe.” He was grinning smugly, “Don't forget to text me.” 

He got up. Angie bounded after him. 

Gabriel was supposed to nip this in the bud and now it was getting out of hand. He needed to do something to stop this. 

He rolled over and closed his eyes and forced himself to sleep. 

***

Gabriel woke up a few hours later. The sun was beaming down into his bedroom, lighting his clothes strewn on the floor and his messy bed where he gave his ass up like a slut. 

Angie was unconscious on the couch when Gabriel headed out to the living room in his boxers. He filled her food dish and helped himself to the coffee Sam must have brewed. 

He pulled Sam's note toward him, all tight, thin letters cramped together like they were written too fast. 

_“Gabe,_

_Had fun last night. Let's do it again. As soon as possible. Especially that last part, the one in the bedroom._

_So, I want to see you. Again. A lot. But tonight is bad, I've got a big final tomorrow and then my brother and I are meeting for dinner at his place the next night. I guess that leaves Wednesday then. Unless Dean gets me drunk and I show up at your door Tuesday night. <3_

_Thinking of you,_

_Sam Winchester.”_

Gabriel blinked at the note on the counter for a moment, an icy dread settling into his stomach. No. It couldn't be. That wouldn't be a real thing. That would only happen in movies. Gabriel read that last part again. _Winchester._ Then he read the part above that. _Dean._

Gabriel walked to his closet with numbness seeping into his bones, his brain whiting out and ears ringing. He found the coat he wore to Dean and Cas' place, one week and a lifetime ago. In the pocket, crumpled and all but forgotten, in Dean's thin, cramped writing was the same number left on Sam's note on the counter. 

Dean, Sam's brother. Dean Winchester, brother of Sam Winchester. 

The protective brother who always had Sam's back. The good guy who took care of Castiel in a way that Gabriel was completely incapable of. The one who warned Gabriel of Sam's neighbor. “Pervy”, was the word he used. “Manipulative pedo” was in there too. 

And Dean didn't come up with this all on his own. Sam told Dean about the creepy guy in his building. 

Gabriel's suspicions were confirmed. He should have seen it coming, huge neon letters. What did he think Sam would say to his friends and family about Gabriel? What had Gabriel done to make Sam feel any different than polite to a weird neighbor. Nice to some guy who was drunk and showed up at his doorstep. Who cried and shoved his ass in the air for the taking. Gabriel got sloppy and that's all there was. Gabriel let down his guard, let Sam's smile creep into his head and his heart, forgetting that Sam was just beautiful. That was just how his face looked all the time, Gabriel wasn't special.  
He went back to the counter, crumpling Sam's note and throwing it, with Dean's into the trash. 

This. 

This was why Gabriel couldn't have friends and why he couldn't have family and why he couldn't let anyone in. This hurt. This humiliation. It wasn't worth it. He was supposed to be hard, be dead inside. He had decided that twenty years ago at a funeral he attended alone. Because otherwise this, right here? Where the sweet boy with the open smile had made him feel like there was something more to him was just a warm day in the heart of winter. This would kill him.

Gabriel knew better and that was the worst part. 

***

Gabriel showed up at work an hour later. He was all but useless. 

He burned a cake that was supposed to be picked up that day. He broke his favorite pastry tray. He snapped at Kevin for being in his way. He almost yelled at a customer. 

He wasn't supposed to be like this anymore. He was supposed to be over this. A rusted over heart wasn't supposed to be able to work enough to break down. Gabriel had known better. 

Kevin left his shift close to tears. Pamela cornered him in the dish room.

“Hey, asshole.” she said, planting her hands on her hips and staring right at him. Her eyes didn't do that thing Sam's did, that dancing thing that made it look like he was searching for something under Gabriel's skin. Pamela's eyes bore straight through him, seeing everything there was in a single go and being completely unimpressed with it. “You can call me what you want because I happen to be tough as nails and a full, grown woman but if you make Kevin cry again I'm not showing you any mercy.”

Gabriel grumbled, turning away to rinse a cupcake tray. 

“What was that, boss man?” Pamela snapped, without any of her usual fondness in the title.

“I said, I know.” Gabriel said louder, still not looking up. 

“You know what?” Pamela asked, now crossing her arms in front of her chest. 

“I know I'm a fucking asshole. I know what I did to Kevin was wrong. I know I'm not right. I know, ok? There was never any question in my mind.”

“Ok.” Pamela said, a little thrown. She shook her head, “So, what do adults say when they know they fucked up? Hmm? What do forty year old men say to eighteen year old boys when they make them cry?”

“Tell him I didn't mean it.” Gabriel asked her, “Tell him I wish I didn't yell at him. He's fine. He's perfect. I'm the one who fucked up.” 

“Mmmmhmm.” Pamela said, tilting her head, “And another way to say that would be...?”

“C'mon, Pamela,” Gabriel said. “C'mon.”

“No. You're a fucking adult, Gabriel. You know how to do this shit.”

“No, Pamela.” Gabriel barked, “No, I can't. Fuck off. I'm wrong. You're right. Get over it and leave me alone.” 

“Jesus, Gabriel. What is so fucking hard about saying 'sorry'?” Pamela snapped. “In one word you can say you fucked up and ask for forgiveness and move on with your life. This is so much harder; you dragging it out. No one wants to watch you cut your own nose off to spite your face, ok? Say' sorry' like we all learned on Sesame Street and I'll start to forgive you.” 

Gabriel turned his back to her, scrubbing the pan in his hand harder than it deserved. 

“Oh.” Pamela said softly. Gabriel heard her, though. Heard her voice and the pity in there so thick it stung. “Oh, Gabriel. Unless... unless saying sorry is harder than saying you were wrong... because it takes that extra step and asks for forgiveness? Is that what that is? Gabriel? What's... what's wrong with you? You can't say sorry because you can't let people forgive you?”

Gabriel stopped scrubbing.

“Is that it? Is that the whole part? You can say that you fucked up but you can't ask people to forgive you? Gabriel... what's wrong with you? That's sick, Gabriel. You're sick in your fucking soul.” 

“I know, ok. That's not breaking news.” Gabriel bit. He was so close to crying or snapping or maybe just combusting altogether. He was cracking apart and everyone was watching. It was humiliating. “I know I'm fucked, Pamela. I didn't wind up alone on accident.” 

“You're not alone, you moron.” she said affectionately. “You got me, you fucking boob.” 

She couldn't know how close he was to falling apart. Then, what was the point of the last twenty years? What was the point of freezing over if the ice would crack at the first person who told him what he had probably already known his whole life? 

“I'm losing it, Pamela.” he muttered. “I'm fucking losing it.” 

“No, baby.” Pamela said, wrapping her arms around him in a hug, “You're finally feeling it.” 

***  
Sam showed up around two in the afternoon. One look at Gabriel and Pamela went to intercept him at the front counter. 

She came back a few minutes later, after having sent Sam on his way empty handed.

“You want to talk about that?” She asked him. “He seemed really confused. How deep in are you guys, anyway?”

Gabriel shrugged, “We've had sex a few times.” Every night this week. “He had dinner.” He cooked for me. “We talked.” I cried on his shoulder, “I drank too much.” Not enough. “I said too much.” But still never got around to telling him the worst part. “He's a nice kid.” Too nice to say no to the manipulative pedo. 

Just like Dean predicted he would be. 

“And what kind of sex was this?” Pamela asked. “Was this desperate sex? Was it selfish sex? Angry sex? Revenge sex? Friend sex? Stranger sex?” 

“What does it matter?” Gabriel asked, annoyed and turning away. Pamela raised a brow. “Really, Pamela, what does it matter? Look at him. No look at me. Even if it was the most intimate, eye contacty, tender love making what would happen there? He's a kid. He's a kid that would still be too hot for me even if I was his age. It's just... he's nice. I'm convenient. I mean, it was fun and all but it's kind of burning out. A fling.”

“Was it a fling or are you declaring it a fling because it might be real and if it's real that means you may someday have to step up for them and have them step up for you? And all that's real hard to do with that voice in your head saying it ain't worth it.” 

Gabriel didn't say anything. 

“Jesus, boss man.” Pamela said, shaking her head sadly.

That about summed it up. 

***

Gabriel managed to get up to his apartment quietly after work. Angie greeted him at the door, dancing and needing her walk. 

“I know.” Gabriel said absently, searching for her leash, “I know.” He said again. “Hush” he snapped as she braced herself to bark. She'd give them away. 

They made it outside without incident and Gabriel didn't see any lights on in Sam's place. Maybe the kid was at the library. He had said he was studying. Gabriel breathed a sigh of relief.  
Angie was just squatting down to pee when he heard his name being shouted down the street. 

“Gabe!” Sam called again as he got closer, a bag from the corner store clutched in his hand. “Gabe, hold up!” Sam half jogged to get there. Angie tugged at her leash to meet him halfway. 

Sam smiled brightly as he saw them. Even in the florescent lights of the street lamp, Sam was gorgeous. His already pink lips and cheeks were glowing as he blushed and looked down at him. 

“So.” he said coyly, “Hi.”

Gabriel smiled tightly. “Hey.” 

Sam stepped back at Gabriel's sudden coldness. He looked Gabriel over quickly. “You ok?”

“Yeah. Of course.”

“Ok.” Sam said skeptically.

“Ok.” said Gabriel. “How are you?”

“Good.” Sam said slowly, trying to figure it out, his eyes dancing as he looked between Gabriel's. Gabriel looked down at Angie trying to climb up Sam's leg and into his lap.

“Good.” 

“Yeah.” Sam chewed his lip, “Are you sure you're ok?” 

“Yeah. Look. I got to go and you've got studying so... Yeah.”

“Yeah.” 

“Ok.” Gabriel said, tugging Angie's leash to pull her away from Sam. “Bye.”

“Wait up, we're walking the same way.” 

“I really have to go.” 

“I can keep up. What's the matter?” Sam asked, walking a little faster to stay astride. Gabriel was no match for those long legs. Not unless he outright ran. And while that was tempting, he was pretty sure it'd look rather silly. Especially since Sam could probably out run him too. 

“Nothing. Is something the matter with you?”

“No.”

“Ok, then.” Gabriel said shortly.

“It's just... it seems like something is the matter.” 

“Well, I already told you that nothing was, so...”

“Hey, Gabriel, look at me. Hold on for a second. Are you mad at me?”

“Of course not.”

“Why weren't you at work this afternoon? And you didn't text me. I just figured you forgot. But, like, you'd say something if you were mad, right?” 

“Sure.”

“Unless you were lying.” Sam said dropping his polite voice, finally matching Gabriel's hard tone, “Then you'd say something stupid like 'sure.'” 

Gabriel glared up at him. Sam glared down at him. 

“Seriously, what is up your butt?” Sam asked. 

“Why, jealous?”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“It doesn't mean anything, kiddo.”

“Ok, so, you're mad at me.” Sam decided. 

“I'm not anything at you.” Gabriel said. “I'm nothing at you at all” 

“Wait, what?” Sam asked. “Oh, my god, you're breaking up with me.” 

Gabriel rolled his eyes. Sam grabbed his arm, forcing him to stop. Gabriel looked down at his shoes while Sam looked him over. “You're fucking breaking up with me and you won't even say it out loud.” 

“We weren't a thing, Sam.” Gabriel said, wrenching his arm free, “We weren't together so we can't break up. We just aren't fucking anymore.” 

“Are you kidding me?” Sam asked, “We were a 'thing' Gabriel. Don't you stand there after last night and tell me that wasn't a 'thing'.” 

“It wasn't a 'thing', Sam.” 

“Jesus christ look at me, would you?” 

Gabriel did. Sam's features softened. 

“Why are you doing this?” Sam asked. Gabriel wanted to ask the same thing. 

“Because,” Gabriel started. He felt his eyes grow hot and he was so totally not going to cry here and now and in not front of Sam twice. “Because I know Dean.”

“Oh.” Sam said. “Oh,” he said a little lower, “Oh. Ok. Well... Ok. I don't think I care.” Sam thought for a minute, “I don't care. I mean... you weren't one of the ones that loved him, right? It's weird... but I guess we're all adults here. It doesn’t have to be a big deal unless you loved him.” 

“What? No! No. I didn't know him, like, biblically.”

“Oh,” Sam's shoulders sagged with relief, “Ok, then What's the problem?” 

“He told me about you.” Gabriel said, “He wanted me to call you.”

“Oh, that's right. He told me he had a friend. Was he trying to set us up on a blind date? Freaking Dean, man. He thought I couldn't make friends by myself.” Sam gave a carefree laugh. “Oh, I thought it was worse than that. He's gonna think this is hilarious. Don't worry. I don't think you're 'spying' or whatever on me. T  
That's a very Dean thing to do and it's annoying but I'm used to it. Was that it?”

“He told me about you.” Gabriel repeated with a little more acid in his tone, “He told me about his brother who had just moved out on his own. Who loved dogs and just broke up with his fiance. He told me about his little brother who was so nice. Too nice, even, to say no if his pervert old neighbor asked for a hand job. Dean told me all about you, and he told me what you said. So... I know what that first night was. I just didn't know the exact words you used to describe me to people. What happened between us is a lot clearer now. I know how to feel about it now.”

“About what?”

“About that pity fuck!” Gabriel bellowed. He forgot, for a moment, that they were in the street and everyone could hear. 

“Is that what you thought that was?” Sam snarled, quieter and more dignified. “You thought that I'd have so little self respect that I'd just fuck you to be neighborly? Who do you think I am? And what about that next night? Huh? Was that me pity fucking you too?”

“No, that was you being horny and me being a convenient hole. And last night was another pity fuck and I knew what it was. I knew the order of things the whole time, Sam. What I didn't know was... was what you thought of me. What you told your brother about me. Ok? So I'm over it. Don't do me any more favors, alright kid? I know how it is now. Clearer than ever. So. Yeah. You can tell your brother that your old pervy neighbor won't be knocking on your door anymore. No more charity hand jobs. You're off the hook. Just, please, kid. I already feel like an idiot. Leave me alone with what little shred of dignity I have.”

“Gabriel. That was my first time with a guy. Ever.” Sam murmured. “It was my first time after Jess... Don't tell me it wasn't real or it didn't count. It wasn't nothing. Dean... Dean puts words in my mouth. He always has. I didn't say that stuff. I'd never say that.”

“Unless you were lying to me.” Gabriel said stiffly, “Unless you'd pity fuck me and then lie to me about what you said behind my back when you thought I'd never find out. You'd say something like 'I'd never say that' right?” 

“Gabe” Sam choked, his eyes hot with tears. “Gabe. Don't do this. I like you. I can't stop fucking thinking about you. I think I'm falling for you.” 

“Stop pretending, Sam.” Gabriel said, “I can't. I can't believe you and I can't love you. You don't have to lie anymore.”

“What about this makes you think I'm lying?”

“The part where you said you were falling for me.” Gabriel tugged Angie's leash hard. Getting them out of there. “C'mon, Sam. Look at you and look at me. Dean was right, ok? That's the fucked up part is that Dean was right and I knew better. I saw this coming a mile away and I still...So. Goodbye, Sam.” 

Gabriel doubted that Angie's legs could move fast enough to get them out of there before he fell apart so he scooped down and lifted her up. 

“Gabriel--” Sam croaked. Tears were running down his face. 

“I'm not mad at you, kiddo.” Gabriel said, “I'm just embarrassed. I'm not anything at you at all.” 

Gabriel left him there. Shivering in the cold with tears down his cheeks. 

Gabriel wanted to turn around. Gabriel wanted to apologize. He didn't.

***

Gabriel went home. He fed his dog. He watched TV. He climbed into bed and he set his alarm and if he cried a little for himself all alone, well Angie was the only one who saw. 

Castiel called him that morning. Gabriel didn't answer.

He went to work and he was extra nice to Kevin and mindful to avoid Pamela because he knew that she would see right through him and he's fall apart all over again. He just didn't have the time to be falling apart everyday.

“You doing ok, boss man?” Pamela asked, cornering him on his way back from the bathroom. 

“Yeah, Pamela. Fine. I'm always fine. Thanks. For yesterday. Appreciate it.”

“Yeah.” Pamela said, narrowing her eyes, reading him. “So. You moving on, then?”

“There isn't anything to move on from. I'm just getting back to normal. I'm fine. Just like I was before.”

Pamela grunted but she let it drop.

***

Gabriel closed the shop. He went upstairs and he fed his dog. He watched TV. He climbed into bed to set his alarm again. He turned his cellphone off. He didn't feel like ignoring Castiel's calls anymore and his text message inbox was full. 

***

 

Gabriel was finishing up selling a coffee and croissant when he saw Castiel standing at the end of the line the next day. 

Gabriel wouldn't have been surprised if it were Sam. Even Dean would have been more expected than Cas. But there his brother was, still wearing his trench coat and looking at the pastry case too hard to be casual. The last customer moved on. 

“Hey. Cas.” Cas started, but looked over the counter at Gabriel. 

“Gabriel.” he said. As usual, Cas didn't know where to start. Dean wasn't here to do it for them. “I've never been here.” He decided as his opener, “Why haven't I ever been here?”

“I don't know, Cas. You've always been welcome.”

“You never invited me.”

“I didn't know I needed to.” 

“Oh.” Cas said, faltering. Gabriel sighed, signaling to Pamela in the back that he was taking a break. 

“C'mon, Cas. Let's get you a coffee, huh?” Gabriel said, grabbing an eclair for his brother and two cups of coffee. He gestured to the table in the back and Cas followed him. It was mid afternoon, so the place was somewhat empty. 

Castiel perched on his chair as Gabriel set the eclair and the coffee in front of him. Gabriel settled in across from him. 

“Did Dean send you?” Gabriel asked finally. Generally, being upfront tended to work best with Castiel. 

“Not really.” Cas said, not bothering to pretend. “He wanted to come in. You turned off your phone. He's been calling.”

“Well.” Gabriel said, “I guess I don't have much to say.” 

“What about to me?” 

Gabriel fell quiet. Castiel took a sip of his black coffee. “Dean expected you to avoid him. He and Sam really got into it when Sam came over last night. Sam said you were avoiding him. Dean just assumed you'd be avoiding him too. But then you weren't answering my calls either. 

“Anyway. Dean wanted to apologize.”

“I'm not mad at him.” Gabriel said slowly, fingering the lip of his cup and looking out the window. “I just feel so stupid. Thought I was over this whole... thing. But I'm not. So, you can tell him that I'm not mad. I was never mad. He doesn't need to apologize. Was that all?” 

“No.” Even Castiel seemed surprised by his answer. He didn't back down, though. Castiel was shy but he had never been meek. 

Gabriel raised his brow expectantly. 

“I think you owe me an apology.”

“An apology?” Gabriel asked, “How did you figure that one?”

“You left, Gabriel.” 

“I'm right here.” 

“No. No, you were supposed to answer my calls. You were supposed to talk to me. Even though it's weird you're still supposed to talk to me. I had absolutely nothing to do with any of it and you're my brother. Sam came over. He yelled at Dean and told him to stop living for him. He said that just because Dean fucked everyone in town and was jaded didn't mean that Sam was and he could decide who was pervy and who wasn't. He said Dean couldn't use his life as a roadmap for Sam's because Sam didn't want to be Dean. Sam wasn't Dean. They yelled and they said personal stuff and then they got really sulky and quiet and then they watched Rosemary's Baby and drank beer and said sorry.”

Castiel looked out the window as well. 

“And you don't answer your phone and you stand up our dinners all the time and you never say sorry. It always seems harder with us and I thinks it's because we never apologize.”

“We're not Dean and Sam.” 

“Well, I want to be.” 

Gabriel snorted. “That's not how it works.” Gabriel shook his head, looking down at the coffee on his table, “They grew up together. They both knew their father. They played games and they fought and they watched each other grow and change. We never had that. That's why they're close. And that's why we're...”Gabriel couldn't bring himself to say 'distant' or 'faking it' or 'nothing.' Not to Cas. Not to himself. Even if it was the truth.

“No.” Cas said and Gabriel looked up at him, meeting his brother's too intense gaze. “No, they're close because they yell but then they say sorry. They chose to be close. I want to be close.

“So, I'll say sorry because I wasn't friendlier when we first met. I'll say sorry because Dean came into my life and I was so busy falling in love with him that I didn't try to be brothers yet. I'm sorry I called you out of the blue. I'm sorry if you wanted to be left alone but I'm not sorry I exist or that I'm here or that I love you. So. Ok. You go.” 

“Cas, what do you want to be my brother for anyway?” Gabriel asked, “I'm no good at it.”

“But you are. It. You're all I got, Gabriel. I'm sorry but it's the truth.”

“You have Dean.”

“But who do I talk to when I want to talk about Dean? How he flirts with everyone. Right in front of me. He doesn't mean anything by it, it's just the way he is and I know he'd never cheat but I hate the idea of someone else thinking of him like that. I don't like other people thinking that he might. Who can I talk to about that? Who do I talk to about Dad?”

“Dad? Fine. What do you want to know about him?” Gabriel asked, crossing his arms over his chest and his legs over each other. 

“What did he look like? What did he sound like? Did he have an accent? What did he like to eat for dinner?”

“He had black hair and blue eyes. He was taller than you'd expect. No, he didn't have an accent. For dinner he liked bourbon. Happy?”

“No.” Cas said, “No because you obviously aren't happy and you're supposed to tell me because I'm your brother and that means something. It means that you're not alone and I'm not alone so quit acting like we are. I can't be the only one talking. I can't be the only one trying.” 

“I'm not any good at it.”

“Don't I get any say in how good or bad you are at being my brother?” Cas asked, “I'm sorry it's scary but... tough. I'm going to love you and call you and I'm not stopping because your opinion on how good you are at being family isn't the first one I consult. So. Deal with it.”

“Cas... you don't get it. You don't understand the way I am...”

“Then tell me! Or tell Sam. Or tell Pamela. You act like you're alone and that you're crappy at being anyone's anything but you're surrounded by people who don't believe you or don't care. I don't think you understand what the word 'alone' means.” Cas took a long breath and Gabriel was startled to see his eyes wet with tears, “'Alone' means going days without talking to anyone besides nurses at a bedside table for days. 'Alone' means having to decide if you're going to pull the plug when you're twenty years old because there literally isn't anyone else. 'Alone' means silence. 'Alone' is drowning and not having anyone around to even notice. So I'm going to cling to you, you... jerk. Because I know what alone is really like. You're a lot of things, but you aren't alone.” 

“Sorry... I didn't know.” Gabriel said. Cas' hand was right there on the table. It wasn't such a scary place when someone held your hand through it. Gabriel tentatively laid his hand over Cas'. “I didn't know it was like that. I'm sorry, Cas.” 

“Well... just answer your phone sometime, ok? Maybe stop by for dinner. It think it's a choice we have to make. Being brothers.” 

“Yeah, Cas you can call me. I'll be better.” Gabriel sighed, “Maybe not dinner. With, ah, everyone yet.” 

“Is it really that bad?”

“Yeah, Cas, it's pretty bad.” Gabriel said, rubbing his temples, “You have to have heard what Dean said about that 'pervy old guy' in Sam's building. He was talking about me. I mean, I guess I knew how it looked... with me being so old and Sam is so young. I just never thought about it much. And now that everyone knows... it's embarrassing. I thought I knew better... But I'm just an idiot.” Gabriel shrugged and gave a strained smile, “I had a feeling that might be the case.” 

“You're selfish, you know that?”

Gabriel blinked over at his younger brother. “Is this your idea of helping?”

“What about Sam, huh?” Castiel asked. “You think you're being so noble by walking away without even entertaining the idea maybe Sam actually does want to date you. Maybe Sam likes your dog and your apartment but most of all, you. And you're hiding behind this... I don't know, poetic idea of keeping your distance. And some of us love you. We can't help it. And you're either all we've got. Or you're someone's first. Sam is sweet. He's nice. He doesn't do things like fool around with strangers for kicks. You're the one who made it dirty. Not him. So if you've got mean voices in your head that are too damn special to share with us, then fine. If you can't handle the emotional intimacy, whatever. But that 'kid' thinks he messed up and he didn't. He tried to love you. You rubbed his face in your mess. Running from this isn't helping anyone. It's selfish.” 

“You have no idea about anything that's going on with me.” Gabriel leaned back in his chair, bracing his feet on the floor. He could get up. He could storm off and use this as a little reminder as to why this 'family' stuff never worked out for him. 

He didn't, though. 

“Yeah.” Cas said, “And whose fault would that be? Try talking to me every once and a while. See how much easier your life becomes.” 

***

Gabriel closed his cafe. He bid Pamela goodnight and went upstairs. He fed his dog. He turned on his TV. A few hours later, Angie's ears perked up as she started into the hall of the building, listening for footsteps. Sam's footsteps. 

They didn't falter as they passed in front of Gabriel's apartment. Angie watched the shadow pass under the crack of the door and whined. She looked expectantly up at Gabriel, then back to the door. When Gabriel didn't get up, she barked and stared at him with a look that said 'Go get him, you idiot.'  
Gabriel was out of his seat before he remembered why this was a bad idea. He was at his door before he remembered why it wasn't worth it.

“Sam?” he asked as the young man froze with his hand on the knob.“Sam?” Gabriel tried again. 

Sam didn't face him, but he did stand still. Finally he cocked his head a fraction of an inch, indicating that Gabriel should get on with it.

“It wasn't nothing.” he blurted. Sam's hand fell off the knob. “It was... it was fucking amazing. And, I didn't know what I had done to get so lucky. I didn't really see what I'd done to earn it. The good fortune of... you. And then you were doing all these things for me... My dog liked you... 

“And, see, I've never been really great with favors. My mom relied on my Dad and... well, that blew up in her face. Then she relied on me. I couldn't hack it. The thing is that I like you. I think about you all the time. I could so easily fall for you. I didn't want you to rely on me, because you're just so much more than I deserve already... I already know I can't keep up. Someday you're gonna be bigger than this apartment. You gonna go someplace nicer and want something more. But this is kinda... it. For me. Just some perv in your building with a bakery and trust baggage. And, see, I was falling for you. I was starting to rely on you. 

“It's my bad. I've been this way as long as I could remember. I'm trying to stop wanting you. It's harder than I thought. So. Yeah. I panicked. And I yelled. And I made it sound like you were using me but really... it was my fault. I wanted you to use me but I knew better. I knew I couldn't handle it. So. Um. Don't feel bad about it. You were fine. You did everything right. This whole... catastrophe was all on my tab.” 

Sam turned away from the door, sliding his hands into his pockets. He raised his eyebrows to that they got lost in the fringe of his bangs.

“You done now?” he asked. Gabriel furrowed his brow. “Cause I've got something to say. The first is that I'm not some prize to be earned. I've got baggage too, Gabriel. Granted, I don't carry it in front of me so I can't see over it, but it's mine and it feels heavy. So trust me to be able to know what I want. Can you give me that tiny little shred of autonomy?”

“But Sam... you don't know the worst part about me. You haven't seen any proof of what I'm really like. You're not making an informed decision.”

“But you were? Jesus, Gabriel. You broke up with me for my own good without even checking in. So, back off on the high handed crap, ok? I got enough of that shit from Dean. And I know Dean talks like I'm some toddler, wandering around with a blindfold, but I've been in love. You've never been through that. I've loved someone so much that it hurt. And I've had that fall to pieces because of how I was and the secrets I kept. You've never been in love, Gabriel. We were both virgins on this one. So please stop acting like I don't know any better. Please stop acting like I can't choose this for myself. As for the worst part of you? I don't need to know it right now. This isn't a trade. I don't need to inspect the merchandise for damaged goods before I take it. 

“It's not complicated, Gabriel. like your dog. And I like your cooking. And I like you. So. Yeah.” 

“She was right.” Gabriel choked as Sam reached forward to sweep him into his arms and, hopefully, lay him across his kitchen table. Gabriel could practically hear music swelling so he had to say his piece before he got any further in. 

If Sam he was going to see Sam be disgusted with him, it would be easier now. Probably. Maybe. Sam froze with his hands cupping Gabriel's elbows.

“She was right... that I loved her better when she was dead.” He looked at the floor. He couldn't watch Sam' eyes dance between his on this one. There wasn't anything more to see under this. He was blank. “I liked her more when she was on her medication. She was kinder and prettier and softer. And then... and then... when she--” Gabriel couldn't say it and keep his throat from contracting, so he gave a single nod, “My first thought was... freedom. I remembered her throwing away my records and not letting me see my friends. I remembered missing class to wait for her call... And she always said she was going to do it. Since I was ten she had said she would kill herself... My whole life I was expecting it, dreading it, thinking about it, worrying about it and then she did and... it was just silence. It was a relief. I loved her more when she was dead. If didn't even love her when she was herself... I don't think I can do it at all. If I couldn't love my own mother...”

“It's fine. It's ok.”  
“No. No it's not. It's the exact definition of not being ok." Gabriel looked down at Sam's hands on him. They looked real damn good there. "I can't promise that I'll ever be ay different. I've been like this my whole life. It's not just going to go away.”

“We''ll figure it out.” Sam said, “But now I know. And you're not scaring me off. So no more running, ok?”

“I'm sorry.” Gabriel said into Sam's coat. 

“We'll figure it out,” Sam repeated. 

They held like that for a while. Sam's hands on his hips, thumbs mindlessly playing with the spare tire on his middle. 

Then Gabriel headed to his place, not needing to look behind him to know Sam was following him. Angie greeted them at the door, barking with glee when Sam stepped in after him.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! Just letting you know that if you enjoy this work (or want to read a longer version) you can buy this fic in BOOK form on amazon [HERE](https://www.amazon.com/Something-Sweet-Melanie-Hart-ebook/dp/B01134ROH8/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1493770932&sr=8-6&keywords=melanie+hart) Names are changed to protect the copyrighted, but it's still a good time. 
> 
> Fan Fiction is the reason I'm a writer and that's just a fact. It's just creative writing practice! Practice that you just can't wait to do! (which is the best kind, after all) So check it out! And if I can do it, anyone can, so make sure you get out there and write! And then tell me about any new gay romance books you publish because I honestly think I read them all.


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